>> i want to start with a hard choice on you, and fortunately it will come out in the wash. holly, i'm giving you an invisible magic wand. you get to choose one person, state, federal, could be xi jinping if you want to and you convince them of one thing. you can change their mind about one thing that they hold, who do you choose and what do you want to change their mind about? >> jeff sessions, criminal justice reform. i mean, more specifically, i'd certainly love to change his mind about sentencing reform, and i hope to have a robust discussion about that today. >> so i want to ask a version of that question to you, larry. one of the interesting parts of this conversation that we're having this morning is in many ways some of the points of tension, each of you, mark, holly, larry, each of you

represents -- has been active within conservative politics and is a leader with inconservative politics broadly construed, but within issues of criminal justice, incarceration, justice, many of the immediate points of tension and disagreement seem to be within a conservative coalition and so, larry, i am curious, for your thoughts on a similar question. if you could change your co-panelist's mind about one thing, what would you try to convince them of? >> probably several things, it would be hard to pick one, but i have to begin in order to keep my job as an assistant united states attorney that nothing i say today should be considered the position of my office or the department of justice. i am here on behalf of the

assistants, and i'm sorry i had to bore you with that, but i would like to stay employed. there is say lot of confusion in con flighting the federal system of justice and the state system of justice and while there are problems in both systems and we should always strive as a country to make our systems of justice better and fairer, the idea that what the state system is doing is put on the federal system, it's just not fair to the federal system and inaccurate in many ways and i would like to con vns my colleagues that they should focus where the real problem resides not as the federal level and at the state level and that doesn't mean there shouldn't be -- >> we are built out in 17 states, by the way. >> given the earlier conversation we stayed very much on the federal level, but state and local policy is a huge, a much bigger part of this issue, but mark, i wanted to come to

you with the last version of the trifecta, and i wanted to ask you if you could change larry's mind about one thing, what would that be? >>. >> i haven't heard larry's position on what we talked about and it sounded like he left a crack in the door open for some reforms and what he just said and what i say is we should learn a lot from the last three decades, the 1980s and the 1990s. i love those decades. i had a lot of hair. i could dunk a basketball, and life was good. i worked in a prison back then. i was out of high school and a bunch of my friends were locked up and some of their lives were ruined forever for drug offenses, and i think that we've learneded a lot the last two decades about what does and what doesn't work and how you can both reduce crime rates and

reduce incarceration rates at the same time and treating them individually and when talking about the war on drugs, there is a criminal element and there say mental health component and public addiction and public health issue, as well and a country as great as ours we should be able to differentiate and i would like to see that happen. >> i want to come back to this matter of how we define this conversation and this question and holly, i wanted to start with you. i'm going to ask each of you one of the advantages of conversations like this is each of you gets to go places and talk to folks and have respects with them that the rest of us don't get to. i want to take advantage of that for our conversation. holly, you spend a lot of time in states working with leaders in states and working with members of your network who are advancing criminal justice policy at the state and local level and what are you seeing, particularly within conservative

states and within red states. where are you seeing red states leading the way on policy prerogatives that you would just click a button and spread across the nation, if you could? >> certainly, red states have, i think, the most -- have had the most success with criminal justice reform and you look at a state like georgia, a state like texas and a state like kentucky. those are the states that have led the way and it's the conservative governors who are so incredibly passionate about these issues and governor matt bevin, a good friend of mine and of mark's is all over the country right now talking about the need for reform and i would say he's probably the most aggressive governor in the united states. is governor malloy still here and he's probably the most aggressive governor on criminal justice policy, but i do want to start about talking about an issue that's gaining momentum in the states and issues related to incarcerated women. last year in my home state the male incarceration grew by 5%.

the female side grew by 14%, and if we're not careful, we're going have an epidemic on our hands and one in four of those women currently entering the system are pregnant or mothers to children under the age of one. so we're not just talking about the epidemic of incarcerated women, but also we have to consider their children and we are now seeing more reforms, specifically tailored to incarcerated women and i'll give a plug for my home state again, the senator has a bill that's going to be voted on the senate floor tomorrow and the senate bill 133. so if you're on the twitter machine, you can say thanks to her for pushing this bill. if you get an opportunity to watch the hearing in the senate health and welfare committee which was very interesting that it didn't go through judiciary because we're looking at this as a public health crisis and i think that we should, but if you get a chance to watch that hearing i encourage you to do so because it was interesting. >> yeah. >> mark, i want to ask, as ceo

of koch industries you spend a fair amount of time talking to the corporate world and the business world about criminal justice and you've taken this on as a business prerogative. i'm curious. what is the investment from the business community on this issue? >> it's interesting. koch, in we've hired people with criminal records and we removed the box from our employment application and we defer the discussion about a criminal record until we have an offer of employment, a conditional offer of employment out there and then we do a background check and what we've learned through that process over the years is that a criminal record is one data point. it's basically what the eeoc said for years that you should consider that data point in whoever you hire and that's one data point and how long ago did it happen? what was the offense? what's the person like now? and so from our experience it's always been a positive. you need to be careful who you

hire regardless of whether they have a record or not, and in the past four or five years we've been more and more vocal about it as there's been more and more attention put on this whole issue and criminal justice reform in particular and most employers, we have discussions with them one at a time, they're open to it and you have to talk to them about it and explain what it is and what it isn't. that's always important, what it isn't and you'll make sure you're prior tiesing safety for sure at all times and make sure you're hiring the right people. you need to do that with every person you hire and we've had in wichita, kansas, where i've spent most of my time and i've started to hire people and my colleagues do the same thing and it's one person at a time, just find one person at a time and hire that person and then hire another person, just like anything else. i will say with the way the economy thankfully is hopefully picking up and booming and there say huge labor shortage in this country there is more of an

appetite to hire people with criminal records. >> a third or so of the people in this country, adults have some type of criminal record. so for us at koch, it never made sense to exclude one-third of the potential workforce because we have 120,000 employees, global employer. we want the best people period, not those with or without a criminal record and i think more and more employers are seeing that. you can't get just one-third of the workforce we're not going to look at because especially for skilled labor, a lack of that in industry, and what we've seen is more and more people are open to it and it's mutual benefit, basically, the employer needs someone and there are people now skilled with prison reform in certain places like michigan and other states coming out and qualified to do the work and there are 6 million jobs that need welders and electricians that go wanting every year. so it's one of these issues, the more people talk about and the more you socialize it the more they get to meet people with criminal records and they see

just regular folks, i speak for myself, i easily could have been caught up with this system and luckily i was on the other side of the bar when i worked in the prison and over time people will change their minds about it, but you can't force it if the government can't force it on private employers if the government wants to help it needs to reduce the number of collateral consequences that keep people from jobs and occupati occupational licenses and things like that. >> you hear from a constituency that certainly from this room is rarer and more elusive. a community of usas and federal prosecutors who feel that the emphasis on sentencing reformat certainly at the federal level, but obviously, more broadly is somewhat misguided, that in fact, enforcement and prosecutorial discretion here is a key -- a key tool in enhancing public safety across the u.s.

and i'm curious. within, given the gravity and the trajectory that this conversation has taken over the past couple of years, where do you see that perspective gaining traction and why? >> about less than 7% of our federal prisoners are women. less than 7%. we have about 58 -- excuse me, 28 juveniles currently serving a federal sentence. this is one of the distinctions that separates us from the state system and the federal system. we are not prosecuting low-level, non-violent drug users. we are not prosecuting juveniles. i have to go to the attorney general to prosecute a juvenile and get the attorney general to sign off on the authorization before we do so. those are the kinds of crimes prosecuted at the state level. we've heard a lot about the success of these state systems. we've done some research recently on recidivism. recidivism is the gold standard. if your system works well your

recidivism rate should be low. the recidivism rate three years out, after you're released a three-year period. how many are re-arrested? it's about 34%. it should be zero in a perfect world. we'd like it to be zero and there are 669,000 states attorneys when they have a magic wand and when they finish the sentence we tap them and say you'll never commit another crime again and that would be wonderful, but that's not the reality of the world we live in. when you look at those touting better programs you have to ask yourself what is the recidivism rate three years and out? the states that we studied and the so-called model states don't come anywhere near the 34% that we achieve at the federal level and their systems cost more. so our position as federal prosecutors is our system's working well. we should continue to do what we're doing. as far as the statutory prosecution, you've asked about how are we doing with the system we currently have and the system we currently have has done

extraordinarily well and we had a crime epidemic in the '80s that was just horrendous and the congress of the united states addressed that by creating new statutes and new tools for prosecutors to use and a result of that our crime rate plummeted. did our incarceration rate decrease? yes, because we're prosecuting people who deserve to be prosecuting for the crimes they're committed. you have to keep in mind that the major goal of the criminal justice system is not only prosecuting people who commit a crime. the major goal is to protect the innocent and protect the public safety and we think that at the federal level we do that well. is there room for improvement? absolutely, but for the most part, facts show that our crime rate has plummeted as a result of the tools that we have including mandatory minimums. i know that's a hot topic, that have worked very, very well for us over the years. >> a big part of what we heard in each of the answers is a very different framing of success and what it looks like and who it's

for. we heard from mark, the employers across the country who are seeking candidates, people to fill jobs and actually have a scarcity of people because, again, one in four people in prison across the world is in prison in the u.s. why in that problem we heard from holly and some of the collateral consequences include the consequences of, for example, dignity for women. one version of success that one could construe is that everyone feels their dignity enhanced. why center the point of solution on re-arrest rates? what do you think -- there are many components, of course, to public safety, but what's the argument for making your definition of success here a stronger definition of success

than, say, the number of people who are currently behind bars who could be in jobs? >> you have to have some way of measuring what, and what's your recidivism rate, five years out or eight years out and it should be based upon re-arrest. what they look is they look at reconvicteds and when you look at reconvictions that drives the number lower and it makes it look like you're having a successful program when that's not the case. one of the things we have to recognize is there's nothing that we're going to be able to do as far as our criminal justice is concerned that will eliminate the real problem and the real problem doesn't begin when you get arrested. we need to figure out ways of what we can do to try to convince people that they should choose a law-abiding way of life. what incentives can we have out there to fix the problem before, quite frankly, it starts and

when we do that then we'll go a long way to fixing the ultimate problem. >> and if we can spend less money on throwing people behind bars, we can invest more money on education -- [ applause ] and economic development, infrastructure improvements and areas where if we were investing more resources we wouldn't see as many people entering the justice system. if we are going to talk about this in the context of public safety, i do want to talk about the statistic. the ten states that have significantly reduced the populations through the reforms that mark and i support saw an average drop in the crime rates of 19%. conversely, the ten states that most significantly increased through the old teflon crime, lock them up and throw away the key policies of the 1980s only saw an average drop in crime of 11%. so, i mean, you know, the strong argument for reform is that it does make our community safer. >> can i just -- and i don't

want to -- i have a lot of respect for larry and what he does, but i have to make just one note. i know i haven't looked recently, but a few years ago there were over 2200 people who were sentenced to federal prison for simple possession. those sound like low-level offenders. that's not an inaccurate number, mark -- >> i have it downstairs. >> are you getting it from the bureau of justice statistics. >> since i sadly don't have a life, i have it in front of me right now, the question is how much -- how many non-violent -- >> all i'm saying is there are in the system, i think, but let's put that aside. mandatory minimums, i was around when they started, obviously. i think that i've heard that's what led to the reduction in the crime rate and i've talked to prosecutors who i respect a lot who say maybe 30%. that was the reason why it dropped. there were other factors. so i think saying just because there were long sentences, i

don't think that's right, and i looked in d.c. i lived in wooster, i saw a lot of things with drugs over the years in that era. i understand what drove it. it was bipartisan and good intentioned, and i do think we overshot on it and i would say that even though larry says the states are different, what they're doing is what we should try to do at the federal level as well, i think is divert people out. we don't have specialty courts and i don't know if that would ever happen. i do know i was at the white house last september and there were a couple of representatives from the department of justice there. there was a great discussion with advocates and elected officials and others and what of the points that the doj seemed interested in is keeping people out of the system. that would be sentencing reform and that's worked in the states. does it work all the time? no, but it's a tool we should use to differentiate and keep people out if we can. i'm not saying anyone's done

anything wrong in the system up until now, right? i'm just saying we know better, we've seen what works in different places with different states with different approaches and whether it's okay, so someone gets out of prison or doesn't go to prison to begin with? great. there's someone that will be in prison and we need to do something with them when they're there. to holly's point on education to level the playing field regardless of socioeconomic status is a good education and we know that's a big problem in a lot of places. so my point of view is the things that generally keep you out of prison to begin with or someone, hopefully a family member that loves you and mentors you, a job and an opportunity and an education, but if people don't get that and they end up in prison, they definitely needed it upon re-entry. we need all of those things to secede and those that do get it in prison, education programs, the study shows by a doj study,

by the way, that for every study for in-prison education, you defer $4 for incarceration costs. it works. >> i want to give you an opportunity to respond and i want to double down on something i heard implicit in your question. >> education, i think is key. this is an inmate's prison record of the courses that the federal bureau of prison has offered this one inmate and i won't be able to read all four pages just to give you a sense. these are the programs thiss inmate was exposed to. residential wiring, self study. computer skills, fair job intervention. strategic future, keyboarding self-study, job survey, computer lab, french 2, classic western movies, history of the world, comedy films study, medicine ball, stretching, fair health, legendary adventures. i could go on and on. so this idea that we put people up in the federal system and lock them in the cell and give

them bread and water is just a fa fallacy. we do everything we can to rehabilitate. yes, you have to be punished for committing a crime and for every crime there is a victim and many victims if you're a drug trafficker and sometimes many victims and the idea that we should focus on the criminal and we can't forget that they're there for a reason and they victimize people and we need to not lose the reality that there's a consequence to the crime these people commit. again, what we need to do is stop people from committing crime. once they've committed that crime, yes, we should rehabilitate them and do everything we can, and the federal bureau of prisons does that. 18 months before you release, they begin a process to get you back in society. six months before you're released you go to a halfway house to get a onand get a place to live. >> you're on a period of supervised release when you have a probation officer that works

with you to continue to assure as best we can that this person does not go back to a life of crime. we fail 34% of the time, unfortunately, three years out. >> we can dive in quite a bit on the question of how do we make the experience for folks who are caught up in the broad system of correctional observation in the u.s. how do we make that experience one that does not essentially trap them in that system. we can talk about that for some time, but i hear something implicit in your line of questioning, larry, that i want to tease out because i also even hear reformers beginning to ask versions of this question which is are we just talking about the low-hanging fruit? are we just in talking about particularly when we talk about non-violent drug offenses, are we dancing around the much larger question of what is america to do with the all of the people who are currently in

the state especially violent criminals. we will come to a point in this conversation where if holy and mark, if your efforts succeed, we will have somewhat addressed the harsh, perhaps overharsh sentencing of drug offenders, but what happens then? if the majority of folks who are behind bars at the state and local level are therefore offenses that include violence. what's the argument to the public? how will we actually make americans productive and send them off to jobs and education with that reality? >> well, to larry's point, i would just like to say the reforms we favor are pro-crime survivor and pro-victim, pro-community and pro-law enforcement and pro-family. that's what we're about. we're not about trying to coddle criminalers on anything else.

we're hopefully trying to make them better people over time. to your point, the bottom line is whether people like it or not, more than 95% of the people in the system come out. they're all coming out. it's not a matter if it's when, and so we as a society ve to decide do we want them to come out better or worse and that get back to the problematic activity and prison reform which at the federal level there is a lot of consensus right now and i want more, but i would also like to get something done. so what we need to do is hopefully make reforms so some of the people are staying out who are aren't a risk to public safety that can be dealt with less consequentially from an economic perspective and a human cost perspective by putting them and locking them up, because over time people get more violent in prison even if they weren't to begin with, but your point is a big point. there are a lot of people with viole violent felonies and tougher felonies and people can change.

it's a tougher sell with the american public, but that's why we need prison reform and reforms where people get educated and people learn skills and people get drug treatment and therapy, faith based, whatever it is. we work with groups that -- and the list you read was great. absolutely. a lot of good stuff in there, but we work with groups that i don't know if they're non-traditional or non-profits like the five ventures. it's a prison entrepreneurship program and fellowship program that goes to the most dangerous prisons, pelican bay, super max in california. i was up there last summer and they have people accused of violent crimes in there for a long time working together across gang lines productively and some of them are getting out and getting jobs. they have entrepreneurial skills. you know, we work with hudson link which is a great education program, prison fellowship, a great program. there are all these different programs out there and one of the things i want to talk about very quickly, not to monopolize the time. i'm really lucky to work at

coke, and we're very lucky to partner with a lot of groups including holly's group, and we have started safe streets and second chances which we think is hopefully going to be a game changer in re-entry reform in this country and re-entry in general and right now it's in four states and four pilot states and we hope to scale it up and someone else said in the earlier session, re-entry needs to be in day one of incarceration. day one. not six months out and 18 months out and it needs to be a mindset and our hope is with the tools we're going to bring working in these state facilities, there will be 30 facilities in four states, texas, louisiana, florida and pennsylvania to start with showing that -- and it will be randomized and it will be violent, non-violent and everything, that we can hopefully reduce the recidivism rate over time through the programs that make people better and we'll see what happens. the groups we work with now, the

ones i mentioned and they have recidivism rates 2%, 5%, 10%. that could be remarkable and a game changer. >> holly, what do you think is the most needed intervention to make use in any encounter with the criminal justice system, not a trap? >> i mean, look, i think we have to be focusing more on treatment, and i know we talk a let about how reforms save money and that's great, but we've got to start putting and this is where a lot of the prosecutors have really been wonderful to work with because they are deep believers in treatment and we just don't have enough opportunities for treatment. i mean, i'm coming from a state, kentucky. i know you guys thought i was from connecticut, but i come from a state where everybody's sick. everybody's sick, and i want to say something about these

people, the criminals, the people who break the law. i come from a family, my dad was a doctor. my mom was a stay-at-home mom and basically a stalker, and i had every privilege that a child could have, basically a perfect upbringing. i struggled with alcohol abuse my entire life. my brother, 6'6", gorgeous, you know, basketball superstar, i hated him growing up. you know, he had a serious brain injury and had surgery and he became addicted to the pain medication that they gave him. so we're all in this together. let's be very clear. so i just want to be careful -- [ applause ] >> i just want to be very careful how we talk about these

people because it's us, you know? >> at a certain point, and i was talking to a fellow journalist in the newsroom and we were talking about the fact that in particular neighborhoods in milwaukee we were talking about milwaukee his parent his told him and he was thinking of going to school in the university of wisconsin system and that his mom had sat him down at one point and said no because for black men our age, one out of every two of us would be pulled under some sort of correctional observation. either it was going to be him or me, one of the two of us would have been in correctional observation. there is one of the strange dimensions of the spread of this problem as we've been talking about is that it is very concentrated in some areas and that there are some folks who

have almost no sight line into it at all, and i'm curious, from your perspective, larry, to come back to you, what is the -- you've talked a lot about the prevention of re-entry, but what would you do? if you could control a state budget and someone were to ask you the question which is a question that a lot of governors get asked, do you put that extra dollar into better prosecution, more enforcement? do you put that extra dollar into making the experience of incarceration better, more enriching or do you put that extra dollar into getting locks into the hands of folks who can connect it into someone who is getting overdose. where would you put that extra dollar? >> i would put that extra dollar to convince people not to lead lives of crime. >> is that marketing? is that education?

>> whatever it takes. we need to focus crime prevention and create an environment where people no longer turn to crime. one of the tragedies in our country is that our minority communities are the most victimized by criminals and it's a tragedy that we need to somehow fix so that your other person there wouldn't be looking at the possibility of going to jail just because of his race. we need to fix that. >> at the same time, we are right now in the midst of another drug epidemic the way that we were in the '80s when harsher sentences and many of them went into effect. right now states are considering this question. is the opioid epidemic a public health emergency or is it a matter of criminal enforcement? and it's a matter of dollars and cents for a lot of jurisdictions. where do you put those dollars and cents now at this stage when you can intervene? is the criminal justice system the best place to invest? >> i don't think it's the best place, but it's certainly one of the places and the things that

have worked for us in the past and the things that we want to continue to use, will it solve a problem? 64,000 of the citizens died as a result of the opioid, heroin epidemic and we are trying to stem the tide of prosecuting people who traffic and drugs and they sell a poison to our citizens for profit. those are the people we prosecute. 4% according to the sentencing commission. 4% of the prosecutions are for possession and those 4%, about half of that comes from my brothers and sisters who are prosecutors on the state border with mexico who capture people coming in with 60, 70 pounds of marijuana and there are so many of them they down pleaded to simple possession. the other cases are in a federal park, or driving down a federal highway and you have a joint you get caught for speeding and you get possession of marijuana. they don't end up at the end of the day, we have trial programs

in the federal system, if you have a joint and at the end of the day you will get no record and put on probation for a year and then it will go away, so we do a lot of good things in the federal system and we need to continue doing those, and no matter what we do as prosecutors and until we face the issue, and until we keep people from leading a life of crime -- >> we need to give them alternatives, job, education and that's what we need. i'm not excusing any criminal conduct, but the people is people have to survive sometimes and they do things they probably shouldn't do, but they do them, and i think the fact that we know we're a lot of these -- i'll speak again, 100 years ago in wooster, massachusetts and there are a bunch of white kids locked up and they ended up in the system and i'm not excusing it in any way and they did these thing, but there is a reason this keeps happening again and again and again, and i don't think we need to keep fighting it with the same tools. i hate to say this.

the war on drugs, drugs won. that's just the reality. so we need to treat it. there is a criminal element, and definitely treat it like that, but there is something much more deeply lying underneath it for people that end up, not saying the dealers, but the people that are addicted. i'm glad we are not taking it the same approach we did with crack and i hope they can get treatment and help and have fulfilling lives and there's got to be opportunities out there. right now a lot of it is a lack of hope and both out there and in prisons. hopefully we can provide some hope and i think there is a lot that we can do as a society to enhance and protect public safety with the great work u.s. attorneys do and all of the prosecutors because like holly said, we're all in this together. >> athank you, mark, and i hear many points of tentative agreement among the three of you and there are more issues so thank you, mark, holly, larry and thank you for your time today and thank you all. >> thank you. [ applause ]

>> yes. thanks again, ma, larry, holly, thank you in particular for your rare, personal candor and thank you, matt. next up, a session from our underwriter. in a moment we're going to welcome susan molinari, vice president of public policy and government affairs and mallika salazar. she's senior counsel on senior and human rights and talking about using technology to advance the conversation about criminal justice, but before they come on stage they wanted us to watch a few minutes of a documentary supported by google about conditions at rikers which is new york city's main jail complex. hit the tape. [ bells ]

>> i remember it like it was yesterday. >> i remember them taking me to unit 1. they beat me so bad they didn't even remember what happened or where i was until 90 days later. >> rikers is sadness. >> rikers is humbling. >> full of hate. >> lawless, too. >> i hated it. i hate -- i hate that place. >> on any given day, rikers island jail in new york city confines nearly 8,000 people. conditions on the island are brutal, horrific, worse than most prisons where inmates serve long sentences after a conviction. but rikers is a jail where 80% of the people locked up are awaiting their day in court and

have not been convicted of a crime. they are innocent in the eyes of the law. >> 15 years old my innocence was -- robbed from me. >> what happens is a lot of times you are subjected to getting raped in the bathroom. i had to have survival sex in the bathroom. >> i wasn't even scared. i just -- i felt helpless. i didn't know what to do. that's when i really realized you are on an island. >> even though he was charged with a crime, my son was never a criminal. he never had a criminal record. my son ended up staying in rikers island for six years waiting for trial. he thought that he was going to die there. >> i'm still dealing with the trauma. trauma is real. i don't care what nobody says, trauma is real. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> ten years of waiting to close rikers that means ten years of more dreams deferred. i have seen how rikers island has destroyed communities. i've seen how people come back to the bronx, come back to communities all across the city and they're different and they are changed and they are fearful and they are hesitant to go and walk down the block and they look at parole officers and the regular cops and the community in a different way. how do we allow this to continue? ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ applause ] >> it's kind of a heavy thing to try and follow, so -- >> it is. it is, but i want people to know

how that piece came about. first of all, i want people to know that that piece that we did is in honor and memory of mrs. benita browder, khalif browder's mother and we did that video in partnership with advocates working on the rikers issue, in partnership with formerly incarcerated new yorkers and their families and we actually have the director, chris jenkins over there who pulled together this beautiful piece for google and it will be shown on youtube. so i want you all to know where that came from because it's an example of the work that google is doing around criminal justice reform, and i guess, susan, my question to you is why are we doing this? why is google doing this? >> first of all, thank you all for being here and allowing us to have this conversation with

you, and i guess so i grew up in staten island, new york. i actually was a former city representative and then i was a member of congress from staten island in brooklyn, so i could see rikers well. i could see rikers while i traveled throughout the city. i never knew half these stories. i never knew any of these stories. why didn't i know the stories? because the gatekeepers kept them quiet. so i think there are two things for why google, why we wanted google to get involved in it and it is number one, because as holly said, it's all of us, right? when you get to meet these men and women, these boys and girls, you see a different phase. you see a different side, you hear a different story about who these individuals are and how they got to be where they are and what we're doing when we re-integrate them and the power that we're trying to give them because really, the difference between them and us is power,

and if we can use the google power and to help do a few things, number one, give them power, give them voice with which every individual that i have met there's that recurring story. i had no voice, no one would listen to me and then, of course, once you're incarcerated it only gets worse. so give them the voice, give them hope, and break down the gatekeepers who only tell us one side of the story of the individuals who wind up in jail, who wind up in the system that only accelerates the burn and the hurt and destroys so many individuals, so many lives, so many communities. so to holly's point, if we can put that face on, i think it makes it easier for us to have this conversation for individuals like myself who grew up thinking i was taking care of a community and representing a city and was blind to a lot of what either the gatekeepers didn't want me to see or quite frankly, my heart and soul wasn't ready to see. so i think google allows us to

give voice and -- and give a perspective that is at times there and allows us to have this conversation because it is a political conversation, right? so much of what we need to do are to rally those individuals to feel safe about taking these votes. about safe about standing in a stage like this and saying these are lost lives and these are good people, and i think the more we talk about it, the more we show it, the more it's on youtube or c-span and the more we have these conversations, the safer people will feel to take up the cause and they know that there is a community of individuals throughout the united states who depend on it and who will support them in it. so -- and you know, one thing that we know how to do at google is to disrupt. we are disruptors and if anything needs to be disrunned

it's mass incarceration. >> absolutely. we are in that space of using these different platforms that we have at google whether it's youtube or it's the art, to be able to disrupt the human cost of mass incarceration. >> absolutely. and it's all, i learned this since mallika came to work for us, it's all of it, right? look at that, 80% of individuals on rikers are awaiting trial. so presumed innocent of the eyes of the law in rikers for years and years. why? because they can't afford their bail that's the difference between the survivor, it's just bail. that's an education people need, and it's a plea just to get out of there, the inhumanity and the soullessness and the reintegration, you know? you talk to these individuals who come out and we expect them

to be able to reintegrate and we as a society give them absolutely no equipment to do that under the best of circumstances and there are so many discussions that we need to have in this country as we watch so many individuals just waste. you know, i took a group of our leadership to rikers. >> yes. >> and we clearly, we got the curator tour of rikers, but it was powerful to watch our leadership, you know, walk the halls of rikers, and neither had been to any form of jail and the vice president of engineering said to me, i didn't even know there was a difference between yale and prison. >> right. >> i guess my question to you is how do you feel that doing this work around engaging in criminal justice reform and choosing to tell some of the stories of the human costs of incarceration. how do you feel that's changed us in terms of leadership and changed the company?

>> i think for sure, look, the individuals that work at google throughout the country, and throughout the world, understand the value of the social platform and the more that they learn about these issues and the more they want to get involved and using this platform for good. again, to highlight these stories, to not allow this to be that conversation that only takes place in certain neighborhoods because that's not where the change is going to be, and so i think it really has changed google in many ways to see that this platform can reach people while they're looking for cat videos or whatever else they go on youtube for or searching for answers on medical equipment that we can then bring them in that's difficult to have, right? >> i think we got to know each

other because she ran a foundation for trafficked young girls here in the united states. before that i worked on child abuse and i think there is a pattern here, right? it's that people don't want to fix it and it's not that people say to heck with them on these things and if you are a good person, it is so hard to believe that these things are happening and so we just turn away. i've been through so many things where we talk about, you know, parents who sell their kids and when you have conversations with legislators or leaders in this country, they don't want to hear it. they can't believe it, right? because there's that evil, that inequality and the evil that just makes it easier to say, i'm not going to read that article on the child who died. i'm not going to read the story about mass incarceration and the loss of innocence and what's happening in there. i'm not going to read the story of, you know, 12-year-olds who are trafficked because people feel powerless to do something

about it. once you can say to somebody, if you look at this, you can join and help fix it, then they will pay attention to it, and i think the one thing that we hope to do at google to give people through these convenings, through the stuff we do in vr, through stuff you can see on youtube, and just having this conversation around the country does two things, it really kind of forces the conversation, but we also want to say to people, and here's ways that you can actually change it. and so, you know, hopefully that's sort of the mission that google has taken up on this. >> and part of that has also been having a policy conversation, right? where we've been bringing in both sides of the aisle to google offices. >> right. >> to talk about this issue of the shares space around reform. as a former congresswoman, i'm curious to know, how have you seen this as we have senator lee and senator booker come in and talk to us about their shared

perspective on reform? >> like, this isn't going to be a news flash to anybody here, but there's not too many things republicans and democrats agree on in this town lately, so when you have leaders of both a conservative movement and mike lee and senator booker who has just been an absolute champion, right there, you know, where they speak from the heart. i don't -- i've seen senator booker speak on this so many times and i still cry when i hear his passion and i hear his story. you know, there's -- there's an opportunity here. there's a real opportunity to engage in this conversation, again, i feel hopeful asht fuf. again, i keep saying the gatekeepers. toi i want to go back to the me too movement. how long has this been taking place? all of a sudden, the gate keepers were gone because of twitter. we want to use google to be that platform for the gate keepekeep

say on criminal justice reform, on the tragedies taking place, the lives we're losing, solutions that are out there to sort of say, okay, now you've seen it, now you've met these people. they are you. so let's do something about it. that, to me, is what provides such hope in this moment of time that we can now reach a larger group of people from new jersey to utah, and every place in between. and have this conversation and mobilize the public to, again, you know, give voice to those who have not given the on mor that you and i are given at this moment to appear before a group like this and give voice. like, that, to me, is just why we're here. >> can i just say something? so malika is a force of nature. i got to know malika because i joined her board on human trafficking. stanford, brown, when she was

starting her law degree, she started to work with women in prison. she went the ngo route because she couldn't get their voices and faces out of her head. that's an incredibly special woman. after working with her, i said to her, you know, it's not an ngo and we've got our corporate issues, but you got a pretty big platform to try to make some change. so we're really grateful she was able to come over to google and help us increase our conscience. >> at first i said why would i come to google? c like, what would i do at google? and you really challenged me to, you know, to be able to reimagine and rethink how we can use a platform like google to be able to advance human rights in general. >> yep. >> and in particular, really thinking through how we can use our platforms to advance, you know, what brian stevenson asks of us, right, to be proximate, to bear witness. i think every day we're thinking about how do we use these different technologies at our

disposal to be able to bear witness to suffering that is otherwise known. why the vr project we've done with atlantic is exciting because it allows us to scale the prison walls -- >> absolutely. >> -- to be able to give the lived experience even if a brief period of time on what incarceration feels like for a grown man or for a child so i'm grateful that you have the leadership and the moral courage to bring google to this incredible place of opportunity on the issue of justice reform. at this really powerful moment where so many people are coming together. >> i understand why you did what you did, because once i started to meet some of these women, in particular, that malika would bring to our attention who have been through hell and back and have such power and have such commitment, you don't forget, you don't turn away. >> i want to close by giving thanks to so many of the

advocates in the room. i mean, when you talk about doing the work around women behind bars, i did that work because of women like shakira washington, so many of the individuals who are in this room have been the powerful, fearless, enduring advocates to make a better system out of our criminal legal system. i want to give thanks to them. i want to give thanks to all the partners who have worked with us so we can do this. and do it with humility and commitment. i want to give remarkable thanks and gratitude to the atlantic for allowing us to do this series. it's been a real honor. >> and i do want to end by taking add van stage vantage of senator booker is off the page, to thank him for his leadership. he engages in this discussion as we does so much, a bipartisan feeling to have a conversation that places blame nowhere, but

provides hope and solutions everywhere. and we need more leaders like that in washington, d.c. so, thank you, senator. thank you, everybody. >> thank you so much, susan, and malika. thank you, again, to google for making this conversation this morning and this series possible. new jersey senator cory booker has been standing at the sidelines waiting to come on. as everybody now and already knew, he's an activist for criminal justice deform along with senator mike lee, senator booker co-spon sosored the legislation that would roll back mandatory minimum sentences and introduced an act that would ban shackling and solitary confinement for pregnant women in federal prison and would require that all women in those prisons get free feminine hygiene products. beyond that, the act would make it easier for women to communicate with their kids in part by keeping them in prisons

that are relatively close to home. and with that, it is my pleasure to welcome senator booker to the stage. >> thank you. >> and he is here can with t"at" editor, jillian white. take it away. >> hello, senator. >> hello. >> when you took office a few years ago, it's safe to say the political landscape was a little different. >> yes, yes. >> so what i want to know is now with the trump administration in place, how much reform is really possible in this area? >> i think it remains to be seen and, you know, baldwin at the end of his great book has this saying where he goes, i know what's asking you is possible, the possible is the least we can demand because people are emboldened by the spectrum of human history, american negro history in particular, it's a perpetual testimony to the achievement of the possible. so the landscape looks horrible. to me. and we don't see an appetite for making these kind of changes and we have critical folks that

block the legislation under president obama that we got out of committee on the floor, and often using tactics that are akin to sort of willie horton like are we going to let people out of prison? i heard that in the committee vote that we just had on the pieces of legislation that we pushed forward. so, but i still think anything is possible if we can raise enough consciousness in our country to foment movement. this parkland shooting is an example of when the consciousness of our country gets pricked, the art -- the shift of what's possible happens. and so i'm really hopeful that this issue, which is gaining bipartisan traction, which is more and more people are beginning to realize, i think that we can shift the realm of what's possible, if we continue at it. i don't care who's president of the united states. >> yeah. so i want to talk a little bit about that bipartisan traction. as was mentioned in the last panel, you've had some

bipartisan success, mike lee, chuck grassley. are you seeing oather conservatives now signing on who have seen the conversation grow and are now interested in working with you, working with dems, on these types of reforms? >> so, you know, i try to approach this as a full-court press across the entire criminal justice system. and sometimes i can pick up a partner like i have in senator johnson, a republican, staunch republican senator, on band the box. sometimes i can pick up a friend or ally like mike lee on reducing mandatory minimum. sometimes i can pick up somebody on marijuana reform. and so there's a lot of field in the injustice within our criminal justice system from arrests to the drug war to incarceration, and given the moral urgency of this, if you live in this space, i'm the only senator that lives in an inner-city, low-income minority

community. and i see every single day, the carnage, daily carnage that the broken criminal justice system had. i'm looking for allies to pick them up anywhere possible. i have soon movement. chuck kbrgrassley when i got ine senate in 2013 was on the senate floor giving speeches against the very things i was trying to do. one of the main reasons i ran for the united states senate and i've seen a coalition built between he and i. so, again, i look at history. civil rights legislation didn't pass because strom thurmond sat there and said black folks should get equal rights. no. it happened because a movement, a multiracial gender age movement happened in this country and you saw people change their minds and that's still why forums like this are important. what was said in the last panel about using incredible technological platforms to prick the consciousness of this country because the real

obstacle to change right now is not simply the people sitting in office, it's that so many americans are vastly unaware of the things that are going on in their name. we are -- we see the state versus, or the people versus. we're the state. we're the people. these are horrible things. i sat down with a u.n. person yesterday discussing the human rights violations going on in the united states. not talking about other countries, but the daily human rights violations that are going on in our own country. again, in our name. and i have such a love for this country. and i'm a -- i always say that this country hasn't broken your heart, you don't love her enough. i love this country. i'm anguished by the ignorance of what's going on every day to millions of americans. but i am knowledgeable that our country when we can become aw e aware, we -- we react and we've

seen that from may 6th of 6 '63n birmingh birmingham, incredible protesters, children demonstrated, exposed the bigotry of the systemic racism of the time. i can go through moments of history, once this country has its moral imagination expanded, conscience pricked, goes from comfort to discomfort that change is actually made and that's what we need many this movement at this point. >> i want to talk a little more about the administration. >> sure. >> do you see any partners there? jared kushner has said this is supposedly an area that he's interested in mostly in re-entry. do you see a sincere effort at partnership there? >> i'm a prisoner of hope and jared kushner has reached out. kushner ses kushner's in the trump -- you're from jersey, you probably have bumped in pem. i will tell you this. jared kushner's father went to prison. i was a guy that was communicating with him while he was in prison. when he came out of prison, he

was just animated because now he saw from the inside how broken the system is. the first time when i went to rikers island to meet with kids when i was stunned and going around talking to children incarcerated who hadn't even had a trial yet, kid after kid was telling me i've been here three months, five months, ten months. no trial even. the person that brought me to rikers island insisted i go was jared kushner's father, charlie kushner. so this is a family issue, and i know that there's a sincere intention there to make change, but, again, i still do not believe we're going to make the kind of massive change we need unless a pressure is applied. and when you have jeff sessions, the most anti-criminal justice reform, somebody who's brought to a halt the civil rights accountability, the voting rights accountability, the police accountability in the justice department, brought it to a virtual halt, someone who blocked our legislation in many

the senate in the last congress before he was there, it gives me a pause to be sober about what can actually be achieve d so there's a lot of activity. i've been invited to the white house, had constructive meetings or constructive discussions, but, you know, james baldwin said it very clearly, i can't believe what you say because i see what you do. my thing is, look, i don't have time to foist judgment or draw conclusions. i just, every single day for me, every single day for me, it's very painful to see what people are suffering. every single day. i'm going to go to the floor of the senate today and try to wake people up that i know parkland is painful and to see these young heroes on tv is so beautiful, but since parkland, hundreds of americans have been shot and killed in communities

of color. i had a 10-year-old boy in atlantic city. where his national headline, why is his family not being interviewed? [ applause ] young man killed in newark. where's his national -- so i -- the cost of inaction, the opposite of justice, is motnot justice. the opposite of injustice is inaction. it is apathy. it is ignorance. and that's the awakening we need in this country, and to see each other's dignity, to see each other's beauty, i mean, i -- i'm guilty, i've made these mistakes in my life. recently. as was said on the former panel. i'm running around the country talking about criminal justice reform and the reason why i introduced the dignity act, the reason why i pulled elizabeth warren in to partner with me is because women were getting up in my face. >> yeah. >> and literally saying to me, i still remember once we had alicia keys came in, it was one

of these wonderful events of criminal justice, in the capitol, and this woman after i give my speech, she brings me over and this is what i love about a certain folk who, like, they don't give a damn what my title is, she's up in my face talking to me like my neighbors do still. and she's like, why do you never talk to the particular concerns of women in prison? she started breaking it down for me. and finally, and i'm embarrassed to say this, i have visited many prisons, from immigration lockup in texas, to rikers island, but i never visited a women's facility. when i went to this women's facility, first i met with many more women, incarcerated women. i was a united states senator, stuff i did not know. here i'm talking about ignorance. i just did not knowed. i went up to the -- this gets me very emotional because when i went to go to the lockup in

danbury, connecticut, the federal facility, i still remember this warden, she's this great leader, this warden of that prison, tough, you know, talking to me, she had a swagger about her. i remember walking in, i asked her, how many women in this facility are survivors of sexual violence and trauma? and she stops and just looks soft and vulnerable in a courageous way, and she says to me, 95%. 95%. we are the society that takes the most harmed, the most hurt, the most victimized people, and our answer to their pain is to throw them into jails and prisons. and to compound -- [ applause ] and to compound their injustice. and so i remember we had a lot scheduled, and i just ended up sitting there at a cafeteria bench talking to these women just using all my time.

what do i need to visit the facilities, but just talking -- and listening to their everyday stories about having to make decisions between buying sanitary products and calling their children who are often separated between two and three places. hearing them with detail how they're trying to make tampons, makeshift tampons in prison. i mean, that's outrageous and inhuman. and so we have a comeuppance. we cannot -- we cannot say that we -- i mean, i'm a big believer that has this belief that before you tell me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people. there's a civic gospel that we all know, just like when a little kid growing up in church, the songs we sang, we have our songs, we swear and oath. we swear and oath in this country on a routine basis that we'll be a nation of liberty and justice for all. and i'm sorry, we are so far from that. when it comes to our criminal

justice system and what we do to people. so -- i -- i just -- i love the progress we're making but even the bipartisan bill that we brought out of congress last congress was anemicchallenges we have. >> that's my other question. the bill you brought out addressed some of the things you just mentioned, sanitary products, being able to call home for free. what are the other needs of women that are not being met, another thing we see when we saw all this reform, a lot of this is at the federal level and federal prisons only have a small slice of inmates compared to local jails and prisons. so how are we addressing that? >> to clarify, there was a comprehensive sentencing bill that made it out. the dignity act hasn't moved at all, but this is what has moved. so next thing you know, elizabeth warren -- by the way, you want a great, fierce partner, grab elizabeth warren. and i'm going on tv talking about tampons and pads, and just

before we leave in 2017 to go on our summer recess, very quietly, the bureau prisons puts out a directive that these products should be provided for free for all of our bureau prisons. so sometimes you don't have to pass legislation, but calling out the injustice. we still have the work to do, again, baldwin quote, i can't believe what you say because i see what you do. we have to make sure people are doing what the federal -- what the bureau prisons said. then the second thing that started happening, this is because of grassroots actactivi. i don't want to credit elizabeth and i have, but so many activists around the country saw the quality of the bill which addressed more needs for women, trauma-informed care, issues of understanding placement of women in relation to their children. as one -- sorry, i call them survivors -- one child told me whose parents were incarcerated,

when the mom goes to prison, the whole family goes to prison. so our bill is very comprehensive but we start seeing, eight states have picked up the dignity act or bills modeled after the dignity act and called the dignity act. eight different states are moving. that's important to me because at the end of the day the federal government only has between so10%, 20% of the prisoners but the states is where the prisons are. to write a piece of legislation that's being picked up in state legislatures is a contribution i'm proud of but goes to show this is a much larger movement and much larger urgency because what we do on the federal level is important, but what's -- where a lot of this movement has to happen it on the state level. >> i want to let the audience know we want to try and get one or two questions in after my next question for senator booker. so, a lot of the pushback that we hear when it comes to sentencing reform is around community safety. can you talk to me about how you respond to those concerns and

also how the incarceration and dealing with these issues helps communities? h. >> first of all, if you're really concerned about dmunt sa community safety before i talk about this false division between violent and nonviolent criminals, but if you're really concerned about community safety, you wouldn't take a drug war and target communities. you wouldn't devastate them economically. you wouldn't rip parents away from children for doing things that three of the last four presidents admitted to doing. you wouldn't give lifetime sentences to individuals when they're coming out of prison for drug crimes, again, that many members of congress have done, and then tell them for the rest of your life, you can't get food stamps, you can't get -- you can't get public housing, business licenses, jobs. so devastating and people are yelling out there's 40,000 collateral consequences for people who have been incarcerated. what does that do to a community? in terms of violence and safety when you take away hope from human beings for being able to provide for their families and

already economically distressed communities? remember there's a study, i think it was vanderbilt did, we have 20% less poverty overall in america if we had incarcerakarc rates the same as our industrial peers. this is profound economic punishment. i will tell you right now our criminal justice system created more violence than it was trying to say that it was trying to solve. what i mean by that is this system of the way it stands right now by so economically disadvantaging certain communities, it has driven crime rates. what we're seeing from some states, most states are low irg their prison populations u you see crime going down as well. again, if you treat people, if you deal with -- from everything from mental health to trauma, you will have a much longer-term success in lowering crime than if you take people who have been traumatized, injured, hurt, addicted, stick them in jails,

further stigmatized, solitary confinement, and experiencing violence in prisons, then release them, hurt people are going to go on and hurt people. and that's the reality. and then just the last point about this false distinction, what we created as violent crimes, having met people who've driven a car and didn't even know that a gun was being used and that person's got a label, violent crime. the last thing i say about so-called violent criminals as a guy who was in heavily testosterone-laden environments like football locker rooms where fights break out, you know, one bar fight, one person tripping and falling, is a violent felon, and to think that people who make mistakes don't have the capacity for redemption, i mean, this is something we've forgotten. this idea that our whole society in many ways comes up from ideals of redemption. of second chances. of not being judged. your whole life should not be defined on the lowest moment.

and, again, that's why i don't buy a lot of the arguments being used by people opposing reform. >> i think we have time for one very speedy question over in. >> hi. thank you so much for your leadership issue on this. i'm one of those people. i'm also the director of a transitional housing program for women in virginia coming out of jail in prison. we're the largest one in virginia. we can only take 26 women at a time. it's just incredible. we're overwhelmed. we get an application every day. so women are out there in the system and they need help and they need leadership, and you're right to talk about the federal issues. for us, these women are with me today, that live in our home and our program, they have terrible issues that are specifically to women. thank you so much for taking the conversation today back to women. this is -- women are not violent criminals. we hear people sit up there and talk about mass murders and all

this and these are not women's issues at all inside the jails. the issues that you're talking about, the feminine hygiene issues, the education, these women want to talk about how they can't get into classes. they can't get treatment. they can't see their kids. >> did you have a question? i'm so sorry to cut you off. did you have a question? >> they have a question, and it was how can they help us fix the issues not at the federal level, but at the state levels? you know, how can we do this work, how can we join you? >> right. so we live in this distraught present where we are a society that is willing to do immoral things that are vastly more expensive than doing moral things that not only save money, but empower lives to go on to prosperity and success, and so, i've seen a lot of the realities where people are coming out of prison that have no place to go, have no support systems, and how -- they go into homelessness

and it's vastly more expensive. and so i think that organizations like yours who are -- we have them in newark, the city in which i live, and these little islands of sanity and moral light that cast dark shadows over the way our society is doing things right now. even, i'm going out to seattle this weekend to help some of my colleagues out there, and i love this one housing group called plymouth housing group where they just analyze small group of people they're serving, relative to the need and the demand, and they just did an analysis of what's more expensive? keeping people with mental illness on streets and homeless, or putting them in supportive housing? as a guy who ran a city, support housing is expensive. they just did an analysis of 23 people on the streets or 23 people in supportive housing. they found they were saving taxpayers and the city $1 million by taking folks off the streets. why? they end up in emergency rooms. they also get churned into our

criminal justice system which is vastly more expensive for our society. and so when you start talking about women who are always the economic anchors of any society, any continent on the planet earth, you empower women, you empower society. if you savagely, brutally, attack women, you devastate communities. you devastate a people. and this is can whwhat we're do this country. again, i keep coming to this parkland thing that i so admire these children. i'm so inspired by them. but where's the conversation about domestic violence murders in this country? and how common it is? and how the stories i'm hearing about -- about the numbers of people that are being murdered, but we're just not having the conversation about what is a reality for women on a daily basis in this country? so the last point, i know gwendolyn brooks said it so eloquently, we are each other's

harvest. we are each other's business. we are each other's magnitude and bond. the sense this is not a dog-eat-dog country. this, i love the ideals of rugged individualism and self-relian self-reliance, but rugg eged individualism didn't get us to the moon. self-reliance didn't map the human genome. we are great when we recognize the essential nature we have to one another and this society cannot thrive when it is casting such a large percentage of its people, millions of its people, into institutions that do more damage to their psyche, more damage to their economic wellbeing, more damage to their families and to their children. this is what we're doing. we are costing ourselves our treasure, and so the only way this is going to stop is if we create a movement and don't allow people who want to demagogue other people, who want to fearmonger other people. if we are at a point in our society where we are afraid of

each other, we will never thrive in generations to come. this is still a young nation. still trying to make real on its promise. still trying to tell the truth to this world that a democracy that believes in freedom and equality, to me, these are the things that we are still trying to prove right over centuries. we're still a young country. i just want to end with that ideal. our founders, as imperfect as they were, genius documents, but they didn't refer to women at all. the native americans were referred to as savages in our declaration of independence. african-americans, fractions of human beings. but the one thing they understood, this being the oldest constitutional democracy, putting forth a country that's not founded because of the cords it had used to tie societies together, it's not a theocracy, not religion, it's not because we all look alike and speak alike. founded on the incredible ideals

we're still in the pursuit of. the end of the declaration of independence. s saying if we're going to make it work as a country, we must pledge to each other our lives and sacred honor. >> i think -- >> my call to action is this. my call to action is this, i will not get off the same until i make a call to action. i will not yield my time. i'm used to a filibuster. i'm used to a filibuster. my call to action is this. all the activists in this room if we do the same thing we did last year, we cannot expect different results. we have to commit in this room for all the people that won't listen to us to be more remember bell lou rebellio rebellious, more unorthodox, more challenging to people to take a stage ar two to let your voice be heard. there's too much sin in this country. we need to ascend in this generation above this tragedy that's happening every single day. >> all right. perfect. thank you, senator. >> thank you.

>> not easy to have to follow senator booker. thank you, senator booker, and thank you, jillian. i hope when you got here today -- shh. i hope when you got here today, some of you had a chance to watch one of the virtual reality short films on juvenile detention. we're going to be watching one of the episodes again in a moment, just not the vr version. in any case, this is part of a series produced by our colleagues at atlantic studios zooming in on the experience of young offenders who end up behind bars. nick pollack is the series producer, and he's here with the "fla "atlantic's" managing editor adrian green with what they discovered along the way. nick and adrian, it's all yours. >> thank you, margaret. so, nick, one of the videos you created features a student named

zakori bates who spent two years in the facility. before we talk about the story, how about we watch the clip that margaret just mentioned? ♪ >> growing up in the neighborhood i did was very violent, you know, they had a lot of shootings and fights. people dealing drugs. like the average kid, it messes them up mentally because you're not -- that's traumatizing. we grew up very fast, so i was doing things that a kid wasn't supposed to do, like stealing money from people just because i think i needed it. i wasn't really, like, a bad kid but sometimes i feel like

responsibility was calling so i had to. it was a rough time for me especially as a 17-year-old. somebody's like, hey, there's this going on and about an hour, we're going to go do this. you know, i'm going with you. i needed to. i second guessed it. every bone in my body, every nerve in my body was telling me not to. but i was just, like, okay, whatever, i still got to do it. drug dealer. i thought it was a great idea, you're a drug dealer, i no yknou have money. like i said, i knew i needed money. family was kind of struggling. i felt like sometimes that was my responsibility. someone died in the mix of it. that's why it was such a big situation to me because we were close. he happened to be with me that day when i made the decision and i guess he wanted to come, too. they're trying to help. i won't say they 100% don't help

or do help, but they're trying. how do you help a 16-year-old that all their life all they know is violence? you can't just swoop in and say stop doing what you're doing, it's not going to work. how are you going to tell me i have to ask you to relocate, how are you going to tell me i got to ask you to go to the bathroom. a lot of kids wasn't used to that. they had the ability to help, maybe they need to sit down and actually talk to them. when i went in, i was 18. i came out, i was 20. it wasn't too different. when i came home, it was just, you know, every -- new buildings, buildings that they tore down. people i haven't seen in a while. you know, kids that i used to baby sit, they grew up so it was kind of like, wow, all this happened in just two years? you know, before that, i was in detention for a few months and then i was on house arrest. i really didn't see anybody for three years so it was kind of, like, weird, in just three years a lot has changed. i got used to it very fast.

come home from work, i just sit here, i'm like, oh my gosh, this is mine. i did it. i celebrated life by myself. just walking around dancing. having a tv. what i wanted to watch, the music i wanted to listen to. you know, just getting comfortable. i'm lucky to have the family that i have because i know if i lose this house, god forbid that happen, if i lose this house, i can go to my mom's house, my grand grandma's house. a lot of kids didn't have that and it was shocking. you know, they go home, they come back to bonair multiple times and i personally talk to a few that have and some have said because they had three meals a day, clothes on their back, they don't have to worry about struggling, trying to figure out when the next meal is going to be or, you know, where tahey're going to lay their heads. it's rough because some people don't have anyone on the streets. up there, they do. they have staff, they have

people. you got recreation. a lot of kids who don't have that, they do appreciate that because not a lot of people care what they do. ♪ >> so, nick, how did you find zakori? what was compelling about her story to you? >> i was connected to zakori through the department of juvenile justice in virginia. i'd spoken to a number of kids both in the facility, outside the facility. so kori was -- she's a fascinating person and has a really amazing story. she -- we talked a lot before we decided to do this interview, and she was really open.

she was very well-spoken on sort of what she saw, what the issues were as she saw them, and -- yeah, connect with her, it made sense to talk to her and she has a great story. >> the clip left off with zakori going to welding school. what is she up to now? >> she is currently in richmond, virginia, writing her entrance exams for the military. >> awesome. she talks about at the end of the clip, she talked a lot about her support system, how she was really grateful to have, you know, a mother and a grandmother and aunt who could take her in if her situation turned sideways and she mentioned that that wasn't the case for many of the people that were around her in bonair. who else did you meet there and what were their stories? >> yeah, part of the reason we decided to pursue a story in virginia is that it's a state that has an incredibly high recidivism rate for kids. over 70% within -- sorry, a

three-year rearrest rate. 70% of kids will be rearrested within three years upon release from bonair. so we wanted to sort of unpack that by talking to kids in the facility, out of the facility, kids on parole, kids diverted out of it. and she really, you know, summed it up perfectly there. a lot of the kids in detention don't have support networks come from traumatic backgrounds. so if you go to a facility, most are going to be released, you're going back to the same situation that you had ended up getting you there in the first place. >> it seems like bonair is quite far away from where the population that is housed there is actually from. is that what you recognized? >> yeah. that's another thing particular to virginia is that virginia has seen a very rapid decline in their inmate population in many secure care facilities. facilities like bonair.

because of that, all of the facilities in the state closed except for one. so there's only one facility in all over virginia for kids sentenced to detention. and that facility is about 20 minutes east of richmond. the majority of kids at bonair come from three communities, that's norfolk, newport news, and hampton, which are over an hour away. >> wow. and this is one of three videos that you're participating in making. tell me about the subjects of the other videos. >> yeah. this is one of three videos, also part of a longer documentary of the other three videos, we spoke to a young man jackson, currently in bonair serving a juvenile life sentence. he is from the d.c. area, so his family is also very far away. he has trouble getting

visitation. and then the third is another young man named darien and he was diverted out of secure care. so he was convicted of a number of charges. instead of being sent to bonair, he went to a diversion program, he's living in an apartment paid for by the department of juvenile justice in virginia beach. >> what did you learn between the differences in those three experiences? how does the arc of this series help us learn more about juvenile detention in virginia in general? >> i think what we wanted to do with this series is tackle the idea of juvenile justice being this effort at rehabilitation, in particular. for juveniles in secure care, the -- the goal is rehabilitation. they're going to be going home. how do they function at home after that? and i think there's recognition within the department of juvenile justice amongst advocates, among almost everyone i spoke to in virginia, that the

system as it is now isn't working as they designed it and so there is more of these efforts on diversion programs. basically going to a facility far away, removed from the communities where the kids will be returning to, isn't working, and they're trying to find ways to get facilities closer to the kids or keep the kids out. >> so bonair is the last juvenile facility in the state of virginia and it's a part of a system that you just said is not working in numerous ways. what is the future of this facility? >> they are trying to close it. the director of the department of juvenile justice submitted a proposal to open a facility in the chesapeake region which would be an hour's drive from these high-commute communities. it would be 25 minutes away from each of them. unfortunately, it was rejected by the local town council.

there was amongst advocates, there was the feeling that this was still too large. it was a 60-bed facility. amongst the local community, there was a feeling that it could affect property values. so it was shut down. as i understand it, there's another proposal in the works also in that region. but as of yet, it's an ongoing effort. >> absolutely. when we talk about reforming parts of the criminal justice system, reducing the juvenile population seems like an aspirational goal. many people agree that is an ideal circumstance. did you see any resistance to that or problems with the way this is playing out in practice? >> i think as the population declines, you're starting to see the problems even more clearly. a decade ago, there was over 1,300 kids in secure care in virginia. now there's 208 boys and girls at bonair, but the racial disparity amongst those kids is greater. all the kids i spoke to were

african-american. most of the kids were african-american. if you are african-american, you are. while the population is going down -- >> i'll start with the -- it took me a while to find it. kind of tucked away. walked in, seemed like just kind of an old -- there's a school on campus, then i got into.

so it's really. security side of schools. >> that was a decision early on. that sort of point of view. and it also.

>> at which -- got the flu and so she. sam, founder and executive, ladies of hope. and piper herman. memoir, "my year in a woman's prison." it is her story and one that got made into a hit television show as i'm sure most of you know.

"the atlantic," final conversation. >> piper, i want to start with you, people probably feel pretty familiar with your life story. from the book. and then also from the show. can you talk to us about what you've been up to since the book? >> okay. the book was published in 2010. i was so fortunate to have the opportunity to write it. to be able to sort of make sense of this experience of incarceration and to think about how my own experience related to this much broader question. in incarcerati incarceration, issues of race and class and jegender that are present in this conversation today. the netflix adaptation of the book was released first in 2013.

and that was a trip. and in 2015 i moved to ohio from brooklyn which is where i lived for a long time and i moved there to teach in one of the men's prisons, one of the men's state prisons and the primary women's prison. there are three facilities that house women in the state of ohio but the main one houses, holds, incarcerates 2,600 women. and so i've been there for about three years working with a lot of students. at this point, we had about 30 students go through the program. the program is quite intensive. at this point, we began -- we began collaborating last year with a university in ohio, which is conferring college credits to my students. and that's been a really fascinating experience as well to sort of get the opportunity

to work with both men and women on their personal narratives. they're writing personal narrative nonfiction. many people would call it a memoir-writing class. and their stories are, of course, tremendous. you know, they're astonishing. they're heartbreaking. they're hilarious. they're enraging sometimes. and people choose to write about what is most important to them. and the goal really of doing that work, and why i went to ohio, was that we need far more stories to come out of certainly, you know, the correctional experience, but also the much broader experience of criminal justice system involvement in order for us to really understand this sort of beast that we've constructed over just really 40 years with a long legacy of racial and class violence backing it up. >> yeah. so this question is for both of you, and you mentioned 2010 which is when the book came out.

so we're almost a decade past. i'm wondering what changes do you think have happened in the criminal justice system specifically when we talk about women who are incarcerated in the past decade? i want to start with you. >> i will say that first more women have been incarcerated. i heard throughout the day that people have talked about that, but also i want to lend my remarks if i can for a moment and dedicate them to ramona brandt, a sister of ours that just passed away this weekend. she received clemency from president barack obama. and about two years ago -- she served 21 years in prison for first-time offense, nonviolent. my heart is broken, but also i'm angry because this didn't have to happen. she was a victim of abuse. she was a battered woman.

when i think about my experience in incarceration, it pales in comparison to those who are incarcerated. when i think of the federal system where piper and i were, they're incarcerated for life. in federal prison, life means death. and when these laws are changing, new laws are introduced, there's no retroactivity. so people are still staying in prison if someone would have gotten arrested today for the same crime, they wouldn't have the same type of disgusting sentence. my heart is really heavy. ramona is a brilliant, graceful, woman, and she stepped out of prison and gave her life for fighting for the injustices of the system and also the sisters she left behind. it's just frustrating to know that from when the time she was incarcerated in i believe it was

1994, my first year in college at the time, to her being released in 2015, even when you said 2010, that much has not changed. >> piper, do you see any big changes or do you kind of agree that kind of the base line is the same? >> when we look at the question of reforming the criminal justice system or transforming it which might be, perhaps, better than reforming it, you know, we have seen progress in the juvenile system in terms of reducing the number of kids locked up in juvie prison though as the previous session revealed, things like racial despaisparity are even starng k right? sometime s when we do reforms,e don't address the most problematic and unacceptable unjustices. so when itle to comes to women though, in thele system, ironically, even though there's

far more discussion of the situation for women and girls in the system, we have seen far less progress in terms of reducing the number. so in many places in this country, the number of men being incarcerated has either been reduced or at least has flat lined a little bit, has plateaued. in most places in this country, the incarceration for women continues to increase. so in ohio, again, where i live, the incarceration rate for women keeps on going up. many of those commitments are for very short sentences, so i always think that when we talk about women and girls in the system, those examples afford us a very ordinary everyday example of this incredible commitment to punishment in this country. so when we talk about the death penalty, or when we talk about the fact that we're the only nation in the world that sentences children to die in prison, juvenile life without parole sentences, those are very harsh sentences, obviously, and

they tend to attach to very serious crimes and serious acts of violence. but when we look at women and girls in the system, what we see is far too many women like ramona who essentially have their lives stolen from them. i can't overemphasize that ramona brandt was a remarkable human being, just to meet her, you know, briefly a few times, you're just like, wow, that's a spirit that we can all learn from. but, you know, her offense just wasn't that different than mine. she was involved in a relationship with someone who was involved with narcotics. just like i was. she had never been arrested or charged with a crime before. just like i was. and i received a 15-month sentence and she received a life sentence. and, you know, we have to look at why that is.

you know, it's overwhelmingly about race, access to justice, access to counsel, you know, but it's fundamentally very much about race and these things have really not been transformed in the system. and so when we look at women and girls in the system, i'll offer one more example, we have to get down to sort of the nitty-gritty and down to the ground like where these sentences are happening. and so in ohio where i live, there's a small rural county, you know, sort of in between, you know, columbus and cleveland, crawford county, and the corrections folks who i collaborate with to do my program told me, yeah, for years and years, they would send an average of two women into the system. right? they were sending an average of two women to prison. to state prison. and then a new judge was elected in that county and he sent 62 women to prison. right? and it's this combination of the work, the actions of judges and the actions of prosecutors that

are sending women into the system for drug offenses and for property crimes and often for very low level ones. and that has not stopped. >> i'm wondering if it you can kind of go back and speak to something piper brought up which is the discrepancy in sentencing that happens based on income, based on race. how have you seen that effect who winds up incarceratedincarc? >> well, it definitely, as piper brought up, i think everyone knows, race is a driver of incarceration. mass incarceration as a whole. same with women. you know, women have been kidnapped from the streets into the system which is despairingly against people of color. communities of color. and so for me, and the work that i do, being a woman of color first, and a formerly incour incarcerated woman, my drive is to help to make sure that women, one, have a platform such as these, that to use their voice making sure we're making recommendations for legislative

change at the table, also we're providing resources our sisters need when we come home. we know what we need first, right? when i came home, there were other formerly incourarcerated women took me under their wing, this is what you should do, let me show you how to do it. it wasn't the systems that were in place. it was not probation and parole. it was not anyone surveillancing over us or our communities. so when we look at what's happening within this system, we also have to tie it into policing, right, and what's happening with policing and what's happening with criminalization of people of clear. it's the same. it's directly tied in. and the only way that we can really dismantle this system, i mean, perfect world, we would love to transform it, right? but you cannot reform something that is in place, as people have said time and time again, in order to do exactly what it has done. disrupt communities of color. and just break our families apart. and so for me, i think we need

to just come to grips with it's about race. right? look at where we've come from. look at where we want to go. and really make those -- put those things to implement new programs and new changes and new laws that will take our people out of prison first then keep our people from going in. >> right. when we think about some of the legislation that is being pushed forward, when we think asbout some of the work being done on criminal justice reform, it always seems to be centeredobvi. i'm wondering if it you think specific legislation, specific programs need to be tailored toward formerly incarcerated women to deal with new challenges they face or is there a sort of trickle-down effect where as we change the system more broadly, it will also help women? >> well, right now, in many my role as director for the dignity campaign for 50, the formerly incarcerated women through the national council actually helped to draft this legislation that i believe senator booker has

spoken about for the dignity for incarcerated women act. piper and i were talking earlier, it's just unfortunate we actually have to write legislation to make sure women have basic hygiene needs met, right? it's terrible we have to write legislation that would make sure children are within proximity to children so we don't have to continue to dismantle and break our family unit. however, we do. so, you know, within that, you know, i just want to take a minute to say when we -- i heard earlier about human rights and us looking at this as humanity and that we have to stop saying, you know, as i come into my political place in this world, you know, left and right, blue and red, and all these other things instead of looking at it from right and wrong and how do we really make these changes to make sure that we, as women, and as people within this country, are doing what's right by their people? and so, you know, the dignity for incarcerated women act, we believe in it because despite all of our work, most of our work wanting to decriminalize and decar rate, that we remember

where we were. it's important while our sisters are waiting to come home that their basic needs are met. >> piper, i'm wondering if you agree with that, also you're working with both incarcerate m, i'm wondering if you notice any differences in kind of the experience they are having and always in the stories they are telling as you work with them? >> i echo everything that toe pe topeka said. the dignity act needs to be passed. and also working at the state level, we have to hold state governments as well. we have to work on many fronts. and often observed 3,000 criminal justice systems to contend with. some of the other things that have gotten more attention and are gaining more steam and are having more proof points will

definitely benefit women, like bail reform, or the abolition of cash bail, right. so we know that the front end of the system has to be our focus, even as we try to make existing correctional facilities more humane and rehabilitative. and even as we work to make sure people have safe return home and the opportunity to succeed. when i think about my students in both facilities, in the women's facility and men's facility, what you start to see is all of those factors, like bail and access to justice at the very beginning hf contact with the criminal justice system. you start to see all of those issues around what is the safety that a person might return home to t and a. and are they returning home to substance abuse or break in health care if they have mental health concerns or any other

chronic concerns. and what we see is this experience of trauma. and we know that the rates of trauma survival for incarcerated women and girls are 80 to 90%. they are astonishingly high. i would say though after three years of teaching in medium security men's facility, that my students survival of trauma is also astonishingly high. and that is all of the same kinds of trauma that we often think about and talk about when we ask for gender responsive programming for women and girls. you know, the men in my classes have also survived sexual violence and exposure to violence at a heartbreakingly young age. they interpret it differently because of gender. they think about it in really different terms, i think, then we do as women, because of these inequalities which are present in the community and which are even more dramatic and

exacerbated in a place like a prison or a jail. because a prison or a jail is a place that is built to be unequal. it is inherently hierarchical, dominance oriented, and functions under the threat of violence. that's how a prisoner or a jail works. right. we put people in a prison or jail and one of the ways we keep them there is by the threat of violence. so the idea that people who have survived violence, that is tethered into the same inequalities will do well and prosper and get better and come home restored in a setting like that is very questionable. and, also, you know, if someone's offense is related to those kind of hierarchies and inequalities. and i always feel most violence stems from inequality.

prisons and jails do that. so problematic idea of thinking pris or or jail can restore people and bring them home safe. >> i do want to let our audience know we'll save time for a couple questions at the end. so start thinking about them now. condense them all the way down. and also make sure they are questions. thank you. so i want to talk a little bit about re-entry, especially when we talk about women of color. i think when we think about re-entry and challenges there, we often think about men, black men coming back to their communities and all the challenges they face trying to reinsert themselves. topeka, can you talk to me about some of the unique needs that meet women when they are released, particularly women of color? >> absolutely. think about having to reunify with families, getting the children back, who a lot of times has been broken up, foster care, parent or grandparent, could be somewhere and not able to connect.

you think about health care, right, how do we have affordable health care in this country which we don't, yet women of color again don't have access to these things. and then the issues that women of color, like uterine fibroids, different things we go through, specifically t and being on home monitor. i'll give you a prime example when i had the ankle shackle on, and i had uterine fibroids and had to have surgery and could not get a certain test done because the machine wouldn't allow me to go through with that on my ankle yet they would not remove it. so the time i was able to get off and have the test done, the fibroid went from 10 to 16 centimeters. so i had to have a full myo ectomy when it could have been partial. so, it's these things, they may not have done it to someone else, but i know they did it to me. and then thinking about access to education h access to different resources. access to being within spaces

that actually give opportunity for job placement. when i was in dan bury, they gave, i was thinking about gender response program tg and things, they offered us for adult continuing education program knitting and crocheting for women. how is that going to help a women return and be marketable and skillset help them get a job sustain themselves and get a family? and housing, being the number one thing that people need when they come home. and safe housing. in new york, they go to a shelter, which is typically debilitated. a lot of violence and things happening within there. new york, if you want to have your children back, and say you have a son and a daughter. they require you to have a three bedroom apartment. so i know how much i pay for one bedroom apartment in new york. and i imagine coming home thinking about getting your children back, right. and then these places don't even have enough beds to even house a woman.

most of them maybe could be 100 beds and 10 dedicated to women. so what we did in new york is have hope house, which is dedicated to women and girls. we are having community push back. so internalized racism within your community. you are coming back into the same communities you left, and they are saying this is great, but not in my backyard. so all of these different things that you have to face, right, and then just also having to worry about being under surveillance, random drug tests where you don't take drugs, having to continue to be dehumanized and demoralized and treated as if you are still, whatever the system felt that you were. and so i know just, again, from being a woman of color and having access to resources when i came home, that i was not treated any different. so i can only imagine the sisters that did not have that access and resources and how they have been treated and it's

why i do and we dpo the work that we do. when we have an opportunity, i know people want to know how they can help f and i know there is organizations ran by sisters right here in d.c. like the wire, and like mission launch, and you know make sure that you connect with these sisters here so you can help them to push their work forward. >> sorry, go ahead. >> i would only reenforce especially the question about housing, i think topeka covered so many of the things facing women that come home. we know there are consistent shared challenges for men and women, but that housing question, you know, is so significant for women. because when you think about men being released from prison, often they have a mother, a sister, a girlfriend or a wife, there is someone, generally a woman, who is going to offer them safe haven. than is much true for women returning home out of the system. and for women, i mean, safe

housing is important for men, but men and women have different questions and considerations when it comes to being safe. and i mean that's why hope house is so important. and other work like that, you know, susan burton's work in l.a. >> yeah, for sure, we modeled our self after. >> okay. >> i want to give the audience a chance if you have any questions. >> andone point i wanted to mak about education, and this relates to the federal system. i think usa attorney, or assistant u.s. tornaattorney sae system was doing basically really well. but to point it out that there are 16,000 people on the waiting list in the federal bureau of prisons for literacy programs. so how is it doing well for

basic programs like that? and the other point i wanted to make is in touching on parents and locating these prisons in very remote rural areas, there is a prison right now that is slated, federal prison, congressman got half a billion dollars in, sitting there. the trump administration says that the population has gone down for four years in a row. we don't need it. so it's a matter of resources. >> thank you. next question right here. >> hello ladies. i'm a tracy from detroit, michigan, retired principal. and my girls fought worse than the boys. and my students were amazing,

but the resources available for young girls in high school to deal with assault, the violence in the home, poverty that we dealt with, what would you think would be some of the things that could be done to help educators like myself to help the young women? because their families were a lot of my kids, their families, everybody had somebody in jail, or just come out of jail, and it affected the family. >> what could be done to help educators help kids? >> yes. >> well, i can just touch on that. there is a young sister named riley who both of her parents are incarcerated in the federal prison. since she was two years old. and she talks about the fact that she would, you know, she was upset, of course, your parents are gone. so she acted out in a way because she didn't have access to these resources which would help her with trauma. so she acted out. yet what helped her was there

were educators who actually connected her with her parents. so i think what's important, if you can identify children or young girls, boys, whomever who has a parent incarcerated, that you make sure they are able to connect, whether it be letter writing or email access, or even maybe taking time to take them to see their parents. >> next question. >> i think i echo your identification of the problem. my father taught primary school and taught fifth grade and was like we always knew which kids were going, you know, like the pathways were really clear and the resources were not there. you know, will you can observe that we fail to put the resources where they need to be. we need to put all the resources to keep a kid who is struggling in a traditional education setting in school. because we know that the minute

a kid leaves the education system, their chances of going into the criminal justice system went way, way up. all of these overlapping systems foster care, juvenile justice system, you know, the school systems, you know, function currently to funnel poor people and poor people of color into prisons and jails. and they are there to employ people in rural areas where we have built up this incredible state. so it's a formidable economic challenge. but we need to spend our money not building edifices to racism and punishment, and investing them in the communities that are most in need. >> everyone please join me in thanking. >> thank you, topeka, sam, and juliet white and all our moderators and speakers today.

just a moment ago when senator booker was on the stage, talked about having a kind of awakening, epiphany where he began to learn things about, in particular, women in prison. and my hope is at the end of the day, which has been a long morning, and i'm awed by how many of you have stayed in your seats. i hope maybe you are sophisticated about what the subjects were here today, that you too learned something and found this a valuable experience. migrate thanks to google for making this morning and this conversation possible. and for their support of the defining justice series. the atlantic will continue to cover this story on stage, online, on video, and in the pages of the magazine. and on behalf of the atlantic, my special thanks to all of you, our audience. we know how precious your time is, so we are grateful that you spent so much of it with us this morning. so with that, have a wonderful

afternoon. >> transportation secretary elaine chow testified before congress on the trump administration infrastructure plan how to pay for updating roads and bridges and reducing regulations on infrastructure projects. we'll show her testimony tonight at 8 eastern on c-span 2. it and the could have fin of the late reverend billy graham. the funeral service will be held in a tent outside of charlotte with live coverage on c-span tomorrow at noon eastern. and tomorrow night this week's oral argument over government unions and whether they can

require workers to pay union fees. in janis versus the american federation of state county municipal employees, the plaintiff says he doesn't want to pay fees yet benefits from negotiations. you can here the arguments tomorrow at 8 eastern on c-span. >> monday on c-span landmark cases, we'll explore the civil rights cases of 1883. the supreme court decision that struck down the civil rights act of 1875. a federal law that granted all people access to public accommodations like trains and theaters, regardless of race. justice harlan decent eclipsed majority opinion. explore this case with danielle holy walker, dean of law school. and peter kirst now, attorney and u.s. attorney on civil rights. watch landmark cases live monday

at 9 eastern c-span, c-span.org or listen with the free radio app. and background while you watch, order your copy of the landmark cases companion book, available for $8.95 at c-span.org/landmark cases. and link on website to interactive constitution. >> next a panel of women discuss the current feminist movement. this half hour conversation was part of the annual conservative political action conference. just outside washington d.c. >> welcome. thank you so much for being here. we are delighted to be with you. so, we are going to be talking