ity. he will discuss racial and socioeconomic factors creating divisions in america's inner cities. plus your facebook comments and tweets and emails. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] host: good morning everyone on this thursday, may 7th. loretta lynch will be testifying, talking about the budget for law enforcement agencies. we will have live coverage here on c-span at 10:30 this morning. and discuss the deaths of freddy gray and others and debate about crime and policing. we will begin here this morning

with what crime and policing is like in your community. if you live in an urban area, dial in at -- host: you can also join the conversation via twitter, facebook or sent us an email. phone lines are open. we want to know what crime and policing is like in your community and what sort of reforms, if any, you want to see. here's "the baltimore sun" this morning front page courtesy of them. mayor stephanie rawlings blake asked ooh full-scale civil

rights investigation into the practices of the baltimore police department it would exam excessive force discriminatory harassment and false arrests and unlayoffal -- unlawful actions. justice department said they received it. this is after loretta lynch the attorney general went to baltimore and met with the mayor and other officials in that community and now the mayor asking for a full probe of the city's police. this after a jack young and 10 members of the city county critical asked for a full-scale investigation. all are democrats. robert is up first in chestnut

hill, massachusetts. robert we are talking about crime and policing in your area. what's it like? caller: can you hear me? host: yes, good morning. caller: yes, well, you know, i guess in light of what has been happening in the last several months whether it be in new york missouri, st. louis, baltimore. in my neighborhood, it's a suburban area, and the police know you. and it's rather homo genius. and i think that this country has a lot of work to do. race relations and perceptions of law enforcement on both ends. and there's so much distrust, and all i can think about,

because i know it's history. all i can think about is that there are african-americans in urban and rural areas throughout the united states that are old enough to remember conner and the fire hoses and the dogs and we now have an african-american presence, and these things still persist. so in my area massachusetts, a very liberal area, but that does not affect the police. unfortunately, i hate to say this. i'm a liberal person. i don't trust the police. i happen to be caucasian. it's not about me. it's not 100% about race. i think there needs to be sensitivety training, quite frankly, and there needs to be trust regained with law enforcement and the general pop

will you explain. host: robert, you said in your area the police know the community and you know the police but yet you don't trust them? caller: well, it's not -- i do trust them. i live in newton, massachusetts. i do trust the police. i've been in other areas, similar areas demographically. my impression is that -- see, this is why i say it's not a racial thing, surely. if one marches to the beat of his or her own drummer and a policeman see someone out of the ordinary, they grill you and they grill you and they grill you as though there is a serious crime. let me just end on this note. host: ok. caller: i'm sure many c-span viewers remember when david

rosin balm, the late reporter of "the new york times" was left to die. it was a -- maybe it's a matter of funding, maybe it's a matter of incompetence but the community needs to understand the police and it's not even about -- rosin balm was a reporter for "the new york times" but the police figured i'm sure the police in washington are you know, overworked and they probably figure -- host: so it's about resources on one end and improving policing. randy in fort worth texas, a rural area. what's it like in your area? caller: thank you for taking my call. it's pretty peaceful here in fort worth. i moved here from baltimore in 2005. you know to get away from the

anarchy. basically, i stand behind the police 100%. i believe the criminals should be reformed not the police. because you have a situation in baltimore where the mayor and the prosecutors and some of the councilmembers are totally left behind or they don't realize the damage they are causing by stralsing the police department in baltimore because what you're going to have is a police department that's going to be slow to respond because they are afraid -- host: when you say federalizing the baltimore police department, you're saying because of this call from the mayor or for the justice department to do a review, there's no federalizing of the police department but you see it as that because she is calling for a review? caller: yes. when you take a look at ferguson missouri they forgot

about ferguson and the michael brown situation, the chief of police stepped down. another one came in and brought in his new chief of police and the crime is worse there now. the police, they can't hire any decent police officers and maryland is taking a page out of ferguson so in maryland you're going to have a higher crime rate and the black people is going to have less protection and the businesses. host: the washington times editorial board is weighing in on what they call the war on the police. the police misconduct is real but exaggeration makes it worse and go on to say the problem is not fundamentally about money. there should be no assumption that enlarging the police department is the solution. minorities already account for one in four policemen a larger

percentage than the population. some say federalization of the police department no proposal is more bereft of common sense. it is the relationship of the police to their local environment which is the most important part of the efficient functioning of police departments. and if the war on police is not stopped by the erosion of the peacekeeping apparatus and the system of justice will guarantee disaster for every member of society. that's the washington times editorial board review. we're getting your take on crime and policing in your community. what's it like and do you think there's any changes that are needed? jay in pennsylvania. go ahead, jay. >> how are you? host: good morning, jay. you're on the air. caller: the first person who mentioned ho knowledge nating,

even though we continue to say this incrediblyor wellian mantra encourages our strength, when i grew up in a small pennsylvania dutch rural area, we had 30-35 kids in a classroom. we had no money. everybody lived in a rural house. everybody had five brothers our fathers were either roofers or fork lift drivers or small business owners and we had a good education because there was a cultural faction and fear of authority engrained in our pennsylvaniain' egerman culture. this is about race not money. and that's what we are never going to understand because through two generations of anthropology we have come to believe we are all

interchangeable and we are not. the race and culture of a neighborhood matters and that's the words of a study people not just like me but look at robert putnam the harvard professor. he did that in-depth study and he was a liberal and the author of a book about bowling alone and didn't like what he found and was forced to reveal it and studied tens of thousands -- one of the major casualties of diversity is loss of trust. it causes people to pull in like turtles and isolate themselves. at least we should recognize that and stop promoting this insane idea of diversity to strength when it's torn apart

civilizations throughout recent history. host: you're on the air from baltimore. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: my thing is, a lot of police officers come to the police department with baggage. i've seen it. i mean the police have been front line for a long time in our disputes and eh. so we have an opinion of our police that's already been formed. i've seen it in the military, a lot of people that have come there with their own perceptions about black people and things like that and it's not good. but you know the problem in baltimore. it is the police department, but a lot of these young people need jobs. and i applaud places like am adone and places that have located in baltimore city and have given jobs to people. we don't want any handouts.

all we want is a hand-up with jobs i implore people, if you buy products. we buy cars. make them i mean, get something for your money. make them locate in baltimore city. get some jobs here. that's what we need. host: all right robert from davenport, iowa. what's policing like in your community? caller: this is a rural area. maybe four percent are black 2% mexican so not a lot of minorities. years back me and others from the naacp started to investigate when there was a lot of hassles with minorities being hassled by the police and we would immediately go to the people who investigate that. as a result the police would come back and say, you shouldn't do this to us,

because if we go into a crime situation we might not act because we think about what you're doing to us. but that didn't happen. i don't see things around here that i see in other cities. what i would say for a solution however is they are supposed to be protecting and serving the people of the community. what needs to happen in is in all the cities they don't needy versety training they need a percentage the people with the most comp plaints need to find job somewhere else. host: all right robert. in a related article front page of the "washington post," death by excited did here yum is being debated. natasha mckennaal weighed 130 pounds but six policemen restrained her.

they shackaled and wrestled the mentally ill woman before shocking her with a taser and she then stopped breathing and died. the taser and use of force were declared not the primary factors. instead it was a rare and controversial syndrome cited in dozens of deaths across the country after struggles with law enforcement, excited delirium. influenced by mental illness or stimulus such as stim lieutenants or cocaine and amphetamine. those in its grip often have extraordinary strength are imperviousness to pain and act wildly or violently then suddenly some die.

other medical experts, civil libertarians have questioned the existence of excited delirium. we are getting a take on what it's like as far as crime and policing in your community. paul you're on the air. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. my general comment is, i've always had the utmost respect for the police. and in my city, there are billboards all over the place that -- who do you call when someone tpwhreaks your house? thank a cop, ok? which i have no problem with, but recently i was sitting on the main street waiting for a bus and two police officers were walking down the sidewalk and i got up and approached them and put my hand out to shake their hand thank them but

the officer blew me off, and he was, like, no. get away from me. it's a contra dicktive statement. host: so what do you think needs to be done. what do you think that attitude -- where does it come from? caller: well, i don't know, miss, because i called the police station and made a general comment about this and the dispatcher told me, well, the people they feel they have to be self-protected. well, i don't think i was presenting any kind of a threat whatsoever. i was just being kind and courteous and he just blew me off like i was nothing. you know? host: ok. bobby from north carolina in a rural area. bobby, what's it like where you live? caller: it's pretty rough where i live. i was arrested about two months

ago for just saying the words, hey, dog, on the street. i had to go to jail and stay locked up for 12 hours. the judge threw it out and said he didn't know why they would be doing this. but we don't have this money to be paying bail bondsmen. i had to call a bail bondsman to get me out, so money being throwed away. they have no jobs. they are closing down all the street -- all the main street martin luther king boulevard is supposed to be one of your best streets. potholes down there. they will build a fire house with a fire truck but then have three little black girls that get burned up in a house about half a mile from the fire station. host: ok. ray in pennsylvania suburb of cranberry township?

hi, ray. caller: good morning. host: so what's it like where you live? caller: well, it's a pretty affluent area north of pittsburgh. the problem is the police are -- they are militarized. everything about them, if you watch any military action, they just totally militarize them and now they just got a bunch of dogs here. there might be three or four burglars a year and there's another township right north of here, they got four police dogs. it's just a whole middle tarization of the police departments nationwide. it's not -- it's nationwide. host: ok. caller: they aral protectors -- you're the enemy. if you've ever been convicted

of any crime to them, you are the enemy. host: and ray have you been convicted of a crime? caller: me? host: yes. caller: yes. host: so what's your experience been like? caller: injustice, you know? in this part of pennsylvania you know pennsylvania statewide 90% of your district judges are ex-policemen. the police walk back in the chamber with their buddy who used to be a cop and it's a racket. but the main thing is, they are pulling their guns. i was always taught you pull a gun, shoot it. when you pull a gun at somebody, shoot it. and they are always pulling their weapons out. it's just a middle tarization of the police department.

host: ok. this is from "the washington post" this morning out of illinois. $5.5 million payout over police torture. a $5.5 million reparation package for the city's notorious police torture scandal that also promises to teach children about one of the darkest chapters in chicago's history. the city has already paid more than $100 million in legal settlements in court judgments and legal fees related to torture of suspects, most of them african-american -- from the 1970's through the early 1990's. we were just talking about the middle tarization of police. take a look at this graphic. the united states is the world's lead they are in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the

nation's prisons or jails and increase resulting in overcrowding and state governments being overwhelmed by the burden of funding the people departments incarceration not the most effective means of increasing public safety. we will be talking about reforms in the justice system throughout morning and beginning with your phone calls what it's like in your community crime and policing. first lots going up on capitol hill despite the house being out this week, the senate is in session. there's a reliable source, the gossip section elton john a.k.a. sir elton said dignified lobbyist but whose purple tint shadesal suggesting i'm still a

glam rocker testifying alongside rick warren who is a mega church pastor and whose flock is engaged in public initiatives around the globe. they were talking about the health of the public. here's a little bit of that hearing. >> mr. chairman, this is the most powerful legislative body in the world, and this congress has the power to end aids. tough power to maintain the historical commitment in leading the campaign against this disease. i'm here today to ask you to use that power and seize this window of opportunity and change the course of history and one day soon i hope stoned my thanks to you this congress of the united states of america not only for fighting this disease but for ending it once and for all. thank you. host: singer song writer elton

john on capitol hill testifying yesterday. we covered it. if you missed it, go to c-span.org, the topic there, global health. also from the washington tinals, mitch mcconnell is pushing the patriot act deadline from phone records to snooping on phone lines hoping to end with a take it or leave it choice. with a june 1st deadline looming he said he is not going to debate the patriot act until the end of may leaving little time for the debate. civil rights advocates say he is making a gamble that lawmakers will be so scared to let the powers laps all together that they would accept a complete extension then "the washington post" editorial board, they are weighing in on the moves of minority leader

harry reid in the senate trickery in the trade and say harry reid will attempt to filibuster pending trade authority legislation. the bill made it out of the senate finance committee with 13 republicans and seven democrats voting for it. now mr. reid says the senate should take up a transportation bill and foreign surveillance act, the patriot act, and that he will try to muster a 41-vote filibuster of the trade bill unless mr. mcconnell agrees. mr. reed has half a point. both of the bills will otherwise expire at the end of may and holding trade hostage

to them would be sheer strong-arm politics. that's "the washington post" with that this morning. and then also want to share with you the front page of the "houston chronicle" below the fold. this story today, texas climbed high before falling hard. former u.s. house speaker jim wright a towering speaker who resigned amid scandal died wednesday and says in fort worth the city he represented in congress for more than 34 years. he was 92 years old embodyying a by gone era right wield of power at the pinnacle of politics until he was taken down by ethics charges and a book deal and outside income. c-span interviewed jimal wright on his book, here's some of that interview.

[video clip] . >> i have been very successful in -- making peace factions of -- but a failure in making peace among factions of congress. my bipartisan approach in foreign policy. we won, i prevailed. in what i thought was my duty. but i was tired of it. and it was time to step aside and let somebody else have it. i could have sustained my position on the house floor, but it was obvious to me by that time that some of those -- trying to embarrass and discredit me and discredited the institution by that means. and they were intent on finding

one thing after another and dragging it out for a year or more and that was -- but the house and not only its opportunity put its responsibility to produce an agenda of legislature. i was in the way. i was a distraction. instead of being the focal point of action, i had unwittingly become a distraction. so the thing to do is to move aside and let somebody else take over. host: the former speaker of the house jim wright died at the age of 92. if you want to watch the full interview, it will be airing saturday at 6:00 p.m. on book tv. that's from 1993 back to our discussion, what is crime and policing like in your community? dennis in central point oregon, you are on the air. go ahead. caller: i just would like to

say in our community the police profile people, low-income people by their vehicles and harass them. and they cause people -- it actually suppresses poor people. host: ok. connie in cleveland, tennessee in a suburban area. what's it like where you live? caller: when it comes down to the cops, the police, my -- she has to maintain her ground. i've been in the ghetto. pretty much my whole life. but i see that she has to respect her ground. so i don't look at it the way a lot of people do. and it kind of confuses me. host: ok connie. why does it confuse you?

explain that? . caller: because i know her job. i know if she gets in a situation, she has to doshe needs to do, and then at the end of the day, i know that bones are going to be dug. host: ok, mark in sioux falls, south dakota. what is it like where you live? caller: sioux falls is not too bad, but i just moved from a central coast of california where there is a little city called king city california where they just indicted for police officers, a chief of police, a temporary chief of police, and i think about four officers, and what they were doing in this rural mostly migrants, mexican areas on the migrant paydays, there were policeman who would pull over hispanics, knowing that they carry their money on them,

tow their car take their money, and send them on their way knowing that these hispanics migrants would not, you know push the issue. in oakland california a little further north, they just arrested a bunch of cops for doing all kinds of shenanigans. in san francisco, they just arrested some cops or relieve some cops because they for some reason check their phone and they had all kinds of text messages about homosexuals blacks mexicans, asians, i mean, you know, i remember in the 1980's when the lapd had to outlaw the total cold chokehold. it gets me when people say these bad cops are the half of 1%. in my lifetime, it seems like, you know, every two years there is a big scandal about police doing something, so police are

people too. and you can tell by their marriages, how often they get divorced, that, you know, maybe the job is too tough for a lot of these cops and they go off the deep end, or they feel entitled to do whatever they want. host: ok, david north carolina, you are on the air. caller: yes i was raising rope in boone at the appellation state university, and we could do whatever we wanted on campus and in the city pre-much as long as we had a nice acar and stayed out of low income areas. you go into the low income areas, and you get harassed, you get pulled over, they are doing a lot more at the college and the low income areas. i think if we want respect back to our police officers and stuff, if we get rid of the prohibition and give people back their liberties at a decent age

there will be a lot more respect for the police officers. host: all right ok, david. quick headline for you on 2016 politics. this is the bookshelf section of the "wall street journal," the burke review -- book review by james freeman. he writes in here -- once hillary was secretary of state, bill clinton got $7,000 per speech. he says that -- he got $700,000 for a single talk. he also says mr. schweitzer couldn't find no evidence that the royals and the united arab emirates have ever paid for a clintons beast before 2011, but that year the obama administration designated a uae's shipping company for doing

economic sanctions with iran. "wall street journal so the book review in the," -- so the book review in the "wall street journal," and we will be talking to the author of that book on friday here on "washington journal" from 8:40 until 9:15, so call in with your questions and comments. on monday, we will be talking with former clinton white house also special counsel lanny davis. and then here this morning in the "washington post" -- hillary clinton meets with donors for a super pac. meeting with top donors for the group during a fund-raising swing through california this

week. so some of the 2016 headlines about hillary clinton and her bid for the presidency in the papers today. i also want to note for you that elizabeth warren, many people would like to see her run for president, she is riding along with bill de blasio, the mayor of new york, in today's "washington post." a new agenda for prosperity. she points out many things she would like to be seen done in this country, bring up the middle class, i am sure everyone gets a great education without drowning in debt, and best in infrastructure -- invest in infrastructure, reform the tax code for the middle class, and promote fair trade is what the two write in today's "washington post." governor andrew cuomo is writing for fast food workers to get a pay raise. on thursday, i am directing the

panel so the governor of new york looking to raise the wage for fast workers in that state. also back up to capitol hill road quickly, "usa today" with this headline -- senate abides double veto. hang with me here, this story is a little bit confusing, but the senate has abandoned its attempt to override president obama's veto on a measure on union organizing rules --

so that in the papers today. brian, warren, michigan, suburb area, tell us what is going on in your area. crime and policing. go ahead. caller: good morning. i live right outside detroit. i am a 59-year-old white male who has moved away from here through high school, i lived in california for 15 years and then moved back here, and the attitudes are completely different. there is no sense of personal responsibility anywhere. when i watch the detroit news as last week, they were protesting a black man who was shot by i.c.e. he had a federal warrant out for him in the multitasking enforcement agency.

the sunday, a kid was shot, 40 seven shots fired, and two days ago, a two-year-old child is guilt, and zero protests. it is self victimization. our country is professional victims. everybody is a victim nowadays. i was raised in a time where you take responsible it for your actions regardless. when i lived in california i am a retired peace officer. i had been in the military for four years, and when i moved back to california after the immigration issues, as a white person, they have no place to take their frustrations out on the government or the system so they look to the older white guy and take their frustrations out on them. not that i am proud to be married more than once, but each time was to a minority woman, so i do not understand -- when you

suggested someone takes response billy for their actions, it is almost a racial term now. it is not even suggested. host: ok, all right florida don, what is it like for you? caller: i get pulled over by the bullies a lot. i got pulled over twice in one week for stopping by sign, and the signs that stop, and the policeman asked why i stopped and i said the sign said stop. i told the police, you give me the ticket, i will see you in court. now, when me and my wife got married, i am a black man, she is a white woman, this dude hit us from behind, he was speeding and they were white. the police passed by, he ran a red light, the police pulled up, and the first thing out of this cop's mouth was, this vehicle

was stolen. he tried to use that junk on us to make it look like ok, i want -- what i had told him the state of florida has passed a law that i consider you for -- i can suee you for $8,500, now he gets nervous and lets us go. we talk about black jobs and this and that. many blacks are not even know this. in 1921, oklahoma was known as the black wall street. remember that, and an fbi agents, they bonded in the middle of the night. after they bombed it, 800 white folks loaded down with guns marched, it burned down businesses, black businesses, so this is the history of this nation.

the blacks have jobs. but when it is businesses, they get burned down. host: ok, don, i have to leave it there. this is from the "new york times," six gitmo detainees released in uruguay. concern about this. this but a lot requiring the administration to take preventative ship -- preventative steps to ensure they do not take -- then also in the "washington post" this morning, here is this headline -- the white house moves a bill through congress that is upsetting the iraqi government. the obama administration has launched a campaign aimed at scrapping a legislative measure that has outraged the iraqi government and led a shiite cleric to threaten u.s. troops.

the health measure, tucked into an early version of an annual defense bill, woodruff wired the pentagon to set aside at least a quarter of up to 1700 $15 million -- up to $715 million -- that is of course of the problem for the shiite iraqi government that they do not like, the distinction calling the kurds a country. and in the "washington times" this morning an event hosted by the atlantic council on the institute of peace he wants a referendum to come peacefully

adding that the kurds have delayed holding a referendum because they're manning the front lines of the war against the islamic state. those are the headlines. peter, north carolina, a rural area. caller: how are you today? i live in a small town in eastern north carolina. it is the second oldest town in north carolina, population of around 7000 people. i moved here a little over 20 years ago when i retired from a job in new jersey. i live in a historic area. the town is basically 50/50 black and white, and we live together, and it is really no problem. when i go back to work and visit people where i work, they go -- how was it down south? i say well you know, things are little different, on friday around 12:00 noon, we close the police station, and if you

commit a crime over the weekend, you turn yourself in after 10:00 on monday morning. you do not want to get up too early in the morning around here, you know? everybody waves to everybody, everybody says hello. one lady had a complainant said well, you know, 9:00 at night, there was a couple walking on a street, and i can always hear their conversation. that is the complaint. [laughter] i met with the sergeants, he was a black sergeant, and when you move here, they knock on your door and tell you about the town , and i said -- how is the crime around here? he said, "i i have worked here for 24 years. i do not remember a crime being committed in the historic area." host: peter, why is that? what is going on there? you think because it is small? caller: it is a nice town for

stop it has always been here. the population in this town -- in the county, it is only 11,000 people. it is the smallest county in the state. the population have not changed since the early or mid 1800s by more than 20 people. host: ok, i have got to run peter. johnny, fort smith, arkansas suburban area. caller: i am actually in truman, arkansas, but i have a conversation about both sides of the statement, and this'll make a lot of people mad, and i hate this, but i wish hillary clinton would call me and talk to me. in two dozen one, i was in sebastian county, i had two c ops approach me and asked for my id in a bathroom stall with a three-month-old baby. they took my id, pepper sprayed me three times in front of my 3

-- or six-month-old baby, at that time. i have never really gotten over that. they did not have a right to do that. in federal court, there were politics played, and i got a phone call that they could no longer represent me. i asked for an apology in a case, and i never got it. july 20 8, 2013, i said if they ever did anything to me again that i did not do, that i would not rest until i got justification. they were ordered to get my property back in 2013, and it has been over a year, and i still have not gotten that, and i think it has to do with -- some trucks, some money, and you get into lawyers. i have gone through a divorce since then. on the other side of the state because i had to move because i had no choice, i come over here and i was living with my mother. i pulled over and got arrested. they went to my mother's house

would not allow me to go to my mother's house, even not had not been convicted of a charge yet and you tell me that is not discrimination. host: johnny, i will leave your story there because unfortunately we are running out of time on this conversation for now. we will keep talking but reforms to the criminal justice system and take a look at across the nation and sentencing and all of that, but first, we want to go to toby harnden, who is joining us on the phone, the washington bureau chief for the "sunday times," to talk about the general election in the united kingdom. this is one of the closest in decades. why is it so close, and how close is it? guest: hi, greta it is great to be with you. it is fascinating and riveting from afar. another election in 2016, a presidential election or the primaries anyway. i think it is so close because the british public has lost confidence in the major

political parties, the conservative already on the right, and the labour party on the left. we have had five years of conservative, liberal democrats conservative governments, and i think if you can poll to vote for none of the above, then they would probably win today, but what the election polls are showing is an extraordinarily tight contest with the conservatives on about 34% labor on about 34% as a, and then going down the list, the united independence party, this new movement anti-immigration, so similar to your tea party here in some ways. you got the liberal democrats, you've got the scottish nationalist party which could be a huge factor because it looks like they are

displacing the labour party in a traditional heartland of labor in scotland. what we are almost certainly going to see tomorrow is that no party will reach the magic number of -- there is actually some dispute over what the magic number is, but 323 seats in the 650-seat chamber to get an absolute majority. you have a lot of horse trading a lot of david camerons, and certain party leaders trying to form a new coalition government or minority government, and you will have ed miliband, the labor leader the opposition leader trying to do the same, trying to cobble together some sort of arrangement, which waould form a government. anybody who says they know what will happen is not telling the truth. host: toby, what role could the scottish nationalist party play, then given what you are talking

about, if there is no clear majority? they will have to try to build a coalition here. what role could the scottish nationalist party play? guest: the scottish nationalist party is fascinating. they are only: 5%. of course they are outstanding in scotland. but in the u.k., they could get 48 seats. if you look at the way that works, the u.k. independence party is about 12% and they are likely to get to seats or three seats, so the scottish national party are very much a socialist left of center party as is the labour party, so they will be a sort of natural alliance, if you like between labour and the scottish nationalist party however, the labour party that it will not go into the coalition would be scottish nationalists so what we made under some kind of loose arrangements whether the scottish national party will prop up a labour party that has

finished second and has got only the second highest number of seats behind the tories. you have the labour party seats and the scottish national party seats, that could result in some kind of government. very uncertain and very vulnerable to a vote with no confidence or the scottish national party. it could be very, very unstable if you can get those two parties and partnership. host: toby harnden, how long does this take to straighten out? guest: [laughs] well we don't know. last time in 2010, it took about two days, and you had a parallel sector, horse trading going on you have the labour party talking to liberal democrats you had the conservative party talking to conservative democrats. he had the scottish national party sort of in the mix as well.

in the end, it was the tories, the labour party, and the liberal democrats with a shared agenda, a relatively stable arrangement, which had indeed lasted five years. this time, it looks like it will be much less tenuous, or much more tenuous. it could take many, many days. the big date on the calendar is may 27 when the queen's speech, which is when the new government agenda is made out. but some people are saying we could even get a situation where that speech or the cleanest is asked to make a speech in which you have a person in miliband or david cameron trying to become the new prime minister, but not sure whether the queen's speech will be passed in the house of commons. host: toby harnden with, the washington bureau chief of the

"sunday times," thank you. guest: appreciate it. host: the polls close at 10:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. eastern time. we will simulcast our live tv election i coverage, which will include interviews and more than 50 locations in the u.k. studio analysis, social media highlights, and forecasts. that begins today around 5:00 p.m. eastern time when the polls close, 10:00 p.m. in the u.k.. look for coverage of that. we are going to take a short break. when we come back, we will continue our conversation here this morning about the criminal justice system. we will talk with fred patrick of these era institute for justice about sentencing and prison reform. it later, jake horowitz of the pew charitable trusts will be here to talk about trends in juvenile incarceration. we will be right back. ♪

>> here is a look at some of our feature programs here in our c-span networks. saturday morning at 10:00 eastern on c-span, we're live from greenville, north carolina for the gop summit. and on mother's day, sunday starting a new eastern, member of america's first families member first ladies, featuring the daughters of jackie kennedy lady bird johnson, betty ford, and laura bush. on c-span two saturday night at 10:00 eastern on booktv's "after words," author jon krakauer on sexual assaults. and general and on woody -- and general ann dunwoody talks about her military career. and saturday on oral histories,

remembering the nazi concentration can't with kurt klein, who was a teenager escape to the u.s., lost his parents in auschwitz, and as an interrogator for the u.s. army, weston hitler's personal driver. sunday afternoon at 2:00 the anniversary of the end of world war ii in europe with dignities and veterans commemorating the event at the world war ii memorial in washington, d.c. get our complete schedule at c-span.org or. >> the new congressional directory is a handy guide to the 114th coverage with bio and contact information and twitter handles. also a foldout map of capitol hill and a look at congressional committees. the present's cabinet, federal agencies and state governors. we will order your copy today. it is $13.95 plus shipping

and handling at c-span.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: this morning on a journal, we are taking a deep dive into the criminal justice system, and today, right now, we want to begin with a discussion on sentencing and corrections. joining us from new york is fred patrick, the director for the centers at the vera institute for justice. fred patrick, let's begin with, and people are currently in the u.s. prison system. guest: good morning, greta. we currently have 2.2 million people incarcerated behind federal, state, and local prison and jails in the u.s.. what that does not include if the 5 million or 6 million in some other form of criminal supervision, be it probation or

parole, and that number also does not capture the fact that you have nearly 12 million people in jail that the local level in terms of county and city jails. host: when you say cycling through jails, what do you mean? guest: that is not several separate individuals, it is individuals with mental health and substance abuse issues so as part of public order, policing it initiatives throughout the country. host: what has been the trend over the years of people incarcerated in this country? what have we seen the numbers do of the past few decades after? guest: we have seen a 70% increase in the prison system

since 1970 and it is historically unprecedented, so it is a unique position in that regard. we are 5% of the world's population, yet we incarcerate when 5% of the incarcerated population? that is roughly five percent to 10% higher than western democracies. we are we out of alignment in terms of our values and what one would they would be, but it is a 700% increase since the 1970's. the other thing to say is when you think about it, it is not just the numbers, it is getting behind those numbers, we talk about mothers fathers, sons and daughters, as a result of the high court rate, 2.8 million children in the u.s. have at least one parent behind bars. there is damage to communities incarceration is a major -- has a major depression effect on the economy, so the incarceration

ken lay to as much as they 40% decrease in -- can lead into us much 40% decrease in earnings. host: talk more about the demographics of those that are in the prison system. guest: sure. blacks and latinos make up 30% of the general population in the u.s., 68% of the u.s. prison population. when you think about the likelihood of expanding the incarceration rates, the numbers are pretty stark. the likelihood, the lifelong likelihood of incarceration of a black male is 1 in 3. for hispanic male, it is 1 in 6. for white males, it is 1 in 17. host: i want to show you the pew research chart, the blight-white gap in incarceration rates.

you can see by age, this is the young group here. compare that maroon redlined to the green line, that is white men. excuse me, the light greenline is all white men, the darker green is white men with no high school the diploma. you can see education have an impact on these numbers. you can see the younger ages, the higher the incarceration rate, and the older it becomes lower. fred patrick, can you talk about that a little bit? age, economic opportunity, and race. guest: sure. as i mentioned in terms of looking at incarceration across racial groups, what you will find is incarceration plays out in minority neighborhoods, and socially and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. in many states, those areas

where you see a high percentage of poor social economic indicators, though seem to be the drivers of the state prison populations. whether you are talking about a place like south bronx in new york city, west park in chicago or they ferguson area in missouri. there is certainly an overlap in that regard. often what you find, too is the lack of education leads to individuals not having opportunity, and certainly when individuals are incarcerated, not only do they now have the difficulty of sort of making a break with family and not having jobs, but we have become an increasingly punitive society, so there are over 45,000 laws and rules on the books that restrain and restrict and prohibit individuals from engaging in productive activities once they return to communities, and you now have

upwards of 79 people in the u.s. who have some form of a criminal record, and those things get a new way of the individual's ability to get jobs, getting accepted to college is so there is a huge economic effect that we often do not talk about. host: why are these folks in prison in the first place? what crimes are they committing? guest: there is a range. you have lots of drug use, you know, we had the war on drugs several decades ago, so a lot of folks are in for their involvement with drug use. you have people in for violent offenses but by and large it is a mixture, and you have far to many people for whom of the criminal justice system is not the appropriate response, and we can be dealing with emergency public health, mental health programming, drug treatment programming. host: take a look at this chart. here is the incarceration rate going back to 1981. you can see how it rises

throughout the years. he wrist 2013. these -- you can see it goes through 2013. these lines are the violent crime rate and property crime right. they start low and the incarceration goes up. fred patrick, what is going on here? guest: again, you have a prison population that is mixed. you have a lot of individuals who have committed nonviolent crimes. others it is not necessary that they have these long sentences. the other thing about long thin that this is the research is clear that when individuals sort of get to their 30's and 40's, they are no longer involved in criminal activities, so there is no need to incarcerate people for as long as we do. there has been a huge increase in the sentence length that people serve, and again it is not clear there is a public safety benefit in that regard. we have again become an

overly punitive and harsh system. even within the system, i want to point out, we are becoming increasingly harsh within the correction centers, increasing solitary confinement for those who are incarcerated. host: this has become a bipartisan issue with senator rand paul talking about criminal justice reform and folks on the left as well. we have divided the lines by d r i, democrat, republican independent, fourth line with those with experience. we go to larry, republican, and former employee. what did you do? caller: marion, illinois federal penitentiary, and i also worked in terre haute, indiana. i had 26 years of experience. [indiscernible]

we are a capitalistic system. that is why we have a higher incarceration rate. because we are a capitalistic system. -- from socialist countries. host: larry, explained that a little bit more. you are breaking up a little bit. what you mean? what about a capitalistic society leads to higher incarceration? caller: money. inmates are not convicts. inmates do not like to be called inmates, they like to be called convicts, and they believe is a soccer works for a living -- what they believe is a sucker works for a living. most of the time when a prison receives an inmate or a convict, he has nine, 10, 15 convictions on his record before he even gets to the penitentiary.

he has been convicted that many times in his lifetime. host: let's get fred patrick to respond. guest: sure. thanks for your comments. in terms of the language issue there has been an effort to make sure we do not dehumanize individuals. we refer to individuals as individuals incarcerated individuals and former incarcerated individuals. it is also the case that individuals are given opportunities and made by the time they reach prison, may have been engaged in crime for a period of time, but again that is not translate to the level of harshness and punitive miss we have in our current system. again, the fact that we have increased the prison population by 700% since 1970, and again there is no clear-cut evidence that all of that incarceration has led to a reduction in crime.

as a matter of fact, state to of recently reduced incarceration rates are the states that actually have the most in terms of declining crime rates. so it is not clear as to whether or not locking up a whole lot more people has given us this peac dividend in terms of safer communitiese. host: talk about the cost, fred patrick. guest: $80 billion annually, and that is on average anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000 per individual to bring on the state. and it is more than the dollar. you talk about damaged communities, damaged families, damaged home lives and again the long-term impact, as i said earlier, individual annual earning is 40% lower just from experiencing incarceration and

the fact that they are deprived from the ability to have full lives with her children. and then the fact that you come home, you face all of these restrictions, and then over 40,000 rules ranging from restrictions on voting to restrictions on occupational licenses. it makes it difficult for individuals to reengage full stop we have 700,000 individuals coming home annually from incarceration yet as a society, we made it difficult for folks to do what we would expect him to do, which is come home, get a job, take care of yourself and your family, be a productive citizen, pay your taxes, and be a good neighbor. host: let's go to california joseph an independent. caller: yes. hello, pastor, how are you doing? guest: good morning. caller: look up the word attainder in bills of attainder that is the problem, they are passing bills of attainder, it is a word of faith, thereby

being produced, separating civil debt, not having the license and protection of the law because they have a federal conviction or whatever. host: fred patrick? guest: sure, so that is essentially my point. we have engaged in perpetual punishment essentially. individuals should be able to do their time and come home and not have ongoing burden in terms of not being able to vote, go to college, get occupational licenses, get jobs for which they are qualified for. host: david in los angeles, go ahead, david. what has been your spirit in the criminal justice system? caller: i will just briefly touch on that, but you will hear my story demonstrates what i would like -- the point i would like to make after a share that with you. i had an incident where one of my sons was engaged in typical

boy activity, playing with a bb gun. he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. now, even though both of the parents, as well as both of the children was conciliatory the cops still arrest him, he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, went through the system, did time in the county juvenile facility, hence he has got a record. now, all through that process everybody was saying the prosecutor as well as his defense attorney, if this was another community with some white kids, they would have not even made it through the police department. but here is the point -- i think there has been a coarseness, and the whole of the american psyche

of "lock them up, throw away the keys." as a result of this type of mentality -- and you will hear it coming through by other callers of a particular mindset that have bought into this type of insanity, where all systems are affected by the judicial system, be it medical, educational. everything goes and defers to the criminal mindset. i mean, crime system. hello? host: ok, david, let's have fred patrick respond. guest: i think he makes a point. we have started to use our criminal justice system to respond to a whole other host of problems. that may be better dealt with by the public health system, by joint treatments, by mental health systems, yet we have become i think overly reliant on our criminal justice system to

deal with a range of issues that are probably better dealt with in other systems. at the same time, when you look at a survey polling around, you see even racial divides in terms of the degree of punitive this that people would like -- of punitiveness that people would like our system to have as well. host: hi. caller: hi. i think this is a danger in the performance of the legislature in terms of quantity, not just quality, this congress has not done as much as athe last congress or whatever. does anybody know what congress does? they legislate, legislating is making law, why do they push through a lot just to get something done? it is pretty stupid. host: fred patrick, do you have

any thoughts? guest: sure. laws matter. a big part of how we got here was the 1994 crime bill in which there was a pylon, increasing funding for prisons, increasing mandatory minimums, eliminating help grants individuals who have been incarcerated. a huge driver for the mess we are in now was laws passed by congress. just yesterday, former president bill clinton talked about the fact that allow that to be reconsidered, allowed those things to deal with what they thought was a crime problem there was an overkill, in essence. just yesterday, president bill clinton talked about he realizes in hindsight, 20/20, we went to far. you damaged communities, you damaged lives, you have folks who were incarcerated with the hope they will come home better

off, but then when you cut education, you cut to training then you do not necessarily pave a pathway or not opportunity for those individuals to come home better off. host: fred patrick, let's listen to what the president had to say. he was in africa for one of the clinton global initiative's. here is what he told cnn about the 1994 crime bill. mr. clinton: my criminal justice initiative was to put 100,000 more police on the street, create more positive activities for young people, ban assault weapons and limit the magazine size, past the brady bill. and the republicans basically wanted to emphasize -- and all that, but i wanted to pass a bill, so i didn't go along with it, and there was a whole movement toward emphasizing that

, especially that three strikes deal, because we had evidence that a very small percentage of the criminal population created a very high percentage of the -- committed a very high percentage of the serious crimes. the problem is, the way it was implemented, we cast a wider net and put too many people in prison. we ended up putting so many people in prison that there was not enough money left to educate them, train them for new jobs, and increase the chances when i came up that they could live productive lives, so i think one of the most hopeful things that has happened in american life is this broad-based -- i'm in going from conservative republicans to liberal democrats, and people in between, is to meet people in jail, we are not doing enough to replicate the ones we can rehabilitate, we are wasting too much money locking people up that do not need to be there. and i strongly support what she

is doing, and i think any policy that was adopted when i was president in federal law that contributed to it should be changed. host: former president they're talking about the 1994 crime bill, saying that it should be revisited. that is our topic here on the "washington journal" this morning. he criminal justice system, what reforms do you think are needed? we are taking your questions and comments. fred patrick is our guest, he is the their institute justice director of their center on sentencing and corrections. hi, will. go ahead. caller: i have a couple of comments and a question. one was that i was in prison myself, and i'm a lot of folks that were in jail and in prison, and what happened to some of the inner guys that are black that i know, you can make more money selling drugs on the street and

you can working for a living. they don't want to be rehabilitated because they cannot make enough money. some of the friends i have used the prison system as a way of wintering out, having a nice place to stay, having food for the winter. that is the hard-core criminal, but people are institutionalized, they do not know how to break out of that caste system, that caste structure they are in. host: let's talk about that, fred patrick. guest: that is the lack of opportunity that we talked about, in terms of educational opportunity, jobs, living wage jobs so that people can support themselves and their families. i think we have to be very careful. you know deprivation of liberty is a serious thing. there are not a whole lot of people who would choose to spend time behind bars where you are not in control of much of what

you can do. so the reality is that lots of folks who cycle through prison and jails may have something to these issues, mental health issues and other issues that impact that decision to engage in crime. let's be careful assuming that people in a willy-nilly type wages freely choose to engage in crime. we do have some for whom that may be their choice, but again it is a choice made often in terms of what are the other options and opportunities. host: north carolina next anita, a republican. good morning. you are on the air. caller: good morning. i grew up in the chicago area, and i moved to chapel hill, north carolina recently, the last t four years. there are a lot of kids in chicago that is not have proper training from their parents. i do not know if their parents

are not familiar with mainstream america as far as relaying information to their children as far as telling them what the laws are in the -- and the children do not know not to break them. and then the families in an african american community will try to take these kids and help them out, but it was not enough, and we needed some type of situation where the government could help us, other than police being the discipline when mothers cannot discipline our children. we cannot use the police as disciplinarians. what i am saying is someone in the family structure, somebody's parent is not knowing enough on how to cope with the laws that america has that their children cannot violate. in adopted children have a tendency to go to prison, so i feel it is in the family

structure in the family not really enough information to these children. why is that happening, and correct that first. host: anita we will take that point. the "washington times" this morning showing 16% of baltimore teens are raised by married parents will sell baltimore and other urban jurisdictions have low level of impact families are at high risk for social unrest. fred patrick? guest: that is part of the vicious cycle we have been talking about, you have committees like baltimore large numbers of individuals who are incarcerated or under criminal justice supervision. they are missing as the "new york times" puts it. we to reform to not only help them succeed but in a bigger way that was talked about because you are talking about the will

to succeed, we invest important dollars from the criminal justice system into support services for families, into neighborhoods, economic opportunities, into better school systems, so that is the thing. we have to figure out how we reduce the overreliance on policing and criminal justice. when he to do a better job at supporting struggling families and struggling neighborhoods because this whole incarceration mess really does play out harshly in 30 well-defined neighborhoods that are often black and brown and poor economically. host: the newly confirmed attorney general loretta lynch will be talking to lawmakers today about the budget for the justice department. we will have coverage this morning, 10:30 a.m. eastern time here on c-span. fred patrick, what can this new

attorney general do to further these reforms that you are talking about, and what kind of reforms would you like to see done? guest: well, i would love to see her continue to use the bully pulpit that her predecessor used in terms of pushing and cajoling the federal government and states to be smarter in terms of sentencing practices and correctional practices. i think we have to figure at how to use the federal government to incentivize less reliance on policing and criminal justice response thing and more reliance on building communities. more reliance on helping individuals who are already trapped in the system of incarceration. the one thing about the crime deal is it shows that when you incentivize in terms of building prisons, the states responded. let's do the opposite. let's incentivize states to

reduce the prison populations by large numbers and safely return people to communities. oftentimes we talk in these whole extremes as if reducing the size of the prison population somehow magically increases crime, and that has not been the case in recent years in several states, so let's move the initiatives through congressional appropriations. let's figure out how to incentivize states to reverse this mass incarceration. host: hot topic, rhode island, a democrat, you are on the air. caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. if you reduce the money going into the criminal justice system if it is just in the inner-city, i think something is going to change. i think money is the problem in the criminal justice system. that is what i think.

host: fred patrick? guest: i certainly agree. we should figure how to reduce the size of the criminal justice system the reliance, and we invest that money in families in struggling communities in our education system, and job training, that is exactly what we should do. host: garland, texas, stony, you are on next, a democrat. caller: yes, i was in prison a lot in the 1980's, and here in texas, the prisons are being ran by private industries, and what they're doing is using the inmate as basically slave labor and i believe that is probably part of the reason why you have such overpopulated prisons now. i believe this is going on in a lot of other states. host: let's talk about that, fred patrick, is that happening? guest: we do have to take a hard and fast look at the image, we

have seen tremendous growth in not only private prisons but private halfway houses, private communities, correction centers now getting into the reentry fields. one has to begin to look at those contexts and figure out -- is there some incentive for states to continue to fill those beds? there was some earlier indications that some of the states' contractors worked in advising the notion of maximizing the bed space otherwise the states would be on the hook to continue to pa those privatey companies anyway. i do think that a summit for examination. host: leon, independent caller. caller: good morning, c-span. i was incarcerated during the crack epidemic. we have to realize, some real said the incarceration is a big business. the problem is we do not have

the capital, jobs, they have to share whatever they have for income. when you do not have the sources to stop the youth from selling and using drugs, then that is one there becomes a federal element involved in it. in case of baltimore, you do not need the politicians coming up and talking about it being a hoodub for the distribution and or neighborhoods. we do not have the resources the votes to bring drugs in our neighborhoods. art moore is the last mafia city on the east coast, and i do not hear no politicians, i do not hear no preachers, i do not hear nobody saying it. host: ok, that is leon in washington, d c

.c. caller: i just want to say that i agree with the gentleman who was an employee at the marion federal penitentiary. the bottom line is money. our ruling class as well as our -- classmate a lot of money. i referenced when reagan was president, on the public media they would just an ounce crime all over the place, but in the meantime admiral poindexter and another were the biggest cocaine distributors in the country and they were making kingpins all over the united states in these inner cities and brainy in drugs and distributing it around the country. host: ok, george. fred patrick, let's talk about incarceration and crime rates over the decades.

we showed this graphic earlier where the incarceration rate has gone up but crime has gone down. is it because -- has crime come down because of higher incarceration? because that is the outcome if you commit a crime. guest: there is not clear evidence that it is a huge crime reduction within the last several years, but that is mostly attributable to the incarceration rate. there is a debate, but there is some sense that the incarceration rate has played a fairly minimal role in terms of the decline in crime. but what we do know in terms of incarceration is that when you look at jails, which is the front door to mass incarceration, even a short stay in jail for an individual who remember, you are presumably

innocent when you are in jail, you have not been convicted by and large, and you're on a short stay because you are unable to make bail can lead to dire consequences. individuals who are retained pretrial which means they are not release on their own recognizance, those individuals and up more likely to be ultimately convicted, more likely to have a longer sentence, and then more likely to then recidivate once they come home from that longer sentence, so incarceration in every way, you know, has this damaging effect all along the pathway. host: we go to atlanta, georgia next. good morning. welcome to the conversation. go ahead with your question or comment. caller: my question is that if no advocacy group boardor no connection to the family of inmates when you have family

members in prison -- my son was murdered in 2012 in a prison by other inmates. his family ran around from everywhere trying to find -- there is no kind of board. we had no way of warning the system about the danger to my son's life. i talked with other family spare they had the same problem. there is no one to talk to. you are basically disconnected from your family. guest: my condolences. often there is a disconnection. a lot of phone fees are very high in terms of ability to call and stay in touch with family members. i urge the caller to do a google search.

these days, most areas, some have gotten involved because the problem has become so widespread. there is likely some organization working on these issues. maybe just google prisons and families and see if you could identify an organization in your state or neighborhood working on these issues. host: i want to show you a headline in the washington times get a new report that elderly inmates are not provided a safe environment. inmates who are at least 65 years old to be freed from prison early on of the compassionate release policy have been overlooked by staff according to a 70 -- 72 page report on inmate population on the federal bureau of raisin. talk about this a little bit here and what is happening? guest: it is a horrific problem

p at we have locked up so many people for so much longer. you have a growing crisis around elderly prisoners. 65 and older. huge medical costs being borne by medical systems. at that age come individuals are not likely to engage in crime in the community. we should be looking to have the individuals in the community. for the most part, they are no longer threats to public safety at the same time, there is a huge medical cost having them in correctional systems. most of the systems have very inadequate, on-site health care. depending on the business, often requiring transporting to local hospitals and local crypt -- local clinics.

we should be looking as to whether or not we could safely have those homes in the community. host: the washington times says aging inmates cost an average of point 4530 82 incarcerate, 8% more than the 22,676 it costs the bureau to incarcerate younger inmates. we will go to smith and costs -- in south carolina. a police officer. caller: i have not heard anything about punishment. i put a lot of people in them but i never heard of anybody serving the map month sentence. there are two things wrong with it. call it what it is, do not give them every advantage. families of these criminals pay for some of the costs. do not let someone get rid of appropriation, parole. get rid of that altogether.

start back where it should be. we will make mistakes every day. but let's quit coddling prisoners. i do not care about the age. why do here if she'd not think about that when he or she committed the crime? guest: i think we have to not lose sight of how we treat people and making the connection between what we want to happen with individuals in prisons and what we expect of them. by and large, most of these people would like people to come home and be productive members of society. that means you provide opportunities for job training so those individuals can come home and get jobs and pay taxes and be good neighbors. we often refer to the notion -- the reality is it is not a joke

and it is not fun being behind bars or you are deprived of liberty and being with your family. so you know, often i think we are too quick to assume it is somehow -- those are harsh conditions. increasingly, our prison systems as the budget has gone up due to the number of people safely housed, a lot of amenities have been cut. you are dealing with overcrowded prisons often. you are not dealing with the lap of luxury. many places, a lot of programs and services have been cut. pathways from prison secondary education, we are working with michigan four individuals near

release because we want to make the connection between education and getting credentials and how it connects to the economy and the latest data is 65% of education. to the effect individuals are coming home, we should see how that could be used as a pipeline to deal with workforce needs in our society. host: what about the ban the box movement out there? guest: there are two aspects of that. the notion of allowing people who have a record to at least get in the door. in most instances it removes the question about a previous conviction or arrest. it removes it from the job applications so you are able to get into the door, in a way

where you could talk about your skills and talents, talk about the efforts you have succeeded in, and then allow government agencies -- criminal record screening. the other part recently in terms of issues of guidance, because you have a conviction, he should not be able to get a job. if an individual has a financial crime, maybe they should not get an a job as an accountant. it does not mean they could not have a whole host of other jobs. then the box is a movement where in cities and counties and states and private corporations, they are removing the question

when people have to reveal on the front end that they had been incarcerated, they often do not get the interview or they certainly do not get called back after the initial interview. host: the director for the institute on justices center for corrections p we thank you for your time. we will continue this discussion about the criminal justice system in america. we will discuss juvenile incarceration coming up next. later, take a look of it divided american inner cities racially and economically p or we will be right back. -- economically. we will be right back. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] ♪ >> they were wives and mothers. some had children and

grandchildren who became presidents and politicians. they dealt with the joys and trials of motherhood. the pleasure and sometimes cast of raising small children. and the tragedy of loss. just in time for mother's day, first ladies looks at the personal lives of every first lady in american history. many of whom race families in the white house. wide -- lively stories of fascinating women paired entertaining read a some original interviews, published by public affairs, first ladies is available hardcover and e-book and makes a great mother's day gift. your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. >> this sunday night on our original series, will lives of two first ladies. original -- elizabeth monroe

made social calls to washington's political society. she spoke french inside the white house and gamed a reputation of being clean -- a clean -- queenly. -- had difficulty winning the approval of her mother oh -- mother-in-law. abigail adam, elizabeth monroe, sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. examining the public and private lives of the women who filled the position of first ladies from martha washington to michelle obama, sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. host: our conversation is continuing this morning about the criminal justice system pair

we are joined now by jake horowitz, the director of the public safety performance project here to talk about juvenile incarceration. thank you very much for being here. where are the trends of juvenile incarceration? what is going on? guest: the rate at which juveniles are put behind bars and the risk of violent crimes is cut in half. we hear a lot of negative stories out there about how things are getting worse. some good news in juvenile justice where we have less crime and less incarceration, a win-win. host: why? what is happening that you are seeing this less incarceration? guest: a lot of trends. the first is the research. $200,000 per youth per year to lock up an individual.

what we see is a return on that spending is quite poor. during 50, 60, and up to 75%. the second trend forming a perfect storm here is public opinion. when we asked voters what they want out of the justice system, they are saying we want outcomes, we want to see kids able to rejoin society and graduate high school, able to avoid future involvement in the justice system. host: voters care less about how long juveniles are incarcerated men about preventing crime. guest: you get polling numbers through the roof. nine in 10 voters saying a matter how we punish kids, whether they go to a juvenile correctional facility or how one is a there, what matters is when they are -- when they come out they have -- they commit less

crime. we see nine out of 10 voters agreeing. republicans, independents, we see households identified as being victims of nonviolent crime. the views are not just held by one portion of the public. host: what are the alternatives? what is working? guest: state policy leaders are looking to put together three primary goals. they want to focus the residential correctional beds they have on the most violent youth. they want to build a true continuum of supervision sanctions, and services in the community. you hear a refrain that says they may have a public safety risk. they either give them nothing or they send them away to juvenile correctional facilities.

they are trying to fill in the middle and provide true alternatives. the third-place policymakers are holding is to hold government accountant -- a county agencies accountable. it is about focusing on the outcome we want, not about how many arrests are generated or correctional facilities. but when they come out, how do they form. host: take a look at this chart that pew put together. most supervising the community had outcomes for high-risk juvenile. what is going on? guest: an important lesson is if we are not careful, with juvenile offenders, we could make them worse. even if we intend to help the kid access service by putting them into a juvenile correctional facility, we might be misguided and that is what the research bears out here in you look at three columns and

youth, it shows the youth were kept in communities just over 20%, whereas those youth in the gray bar were put in the department of youth services facility. more than 50%, and it is only really for the very highest for whom the juvenile correctional facility better than a community replacement. host: why is that? what is happening in the correctional facilities? guest: several things. one is removing a child from the home and community. this can break bonds with the school, families, other social factors in their lives. this looks at the low and moderate risk youth in particular. if you take a low risk youth and put them in a correctional saudi with high risk youth, you could expose them to more antisocial activities.

finally, we know a lot more about what deters behavior. this is a system across juveniles and adults pay we know the certainty sanction matters a whole lot more than severity of sanction. placing a kid there for 12 months or nine months has very little impact over those who are only three months. they're not thinking 12 months down the line. they are thinking about what is happening in their lives pivot action is, should the use be -- the youths replaced out of home? host: the chart raise up -- bears at what you're saying. re-arrest rates remain steady for those with longer sentences. guest: the longer they're in, there is no effect. they're paying even hundreds of thousands of dollars and getting the same results as if you had only held him there for three months. it is a fascinating study in

philadelphia and phoenix looking at high risk youth. it was not even looking at lower-level kids. what we see is they have no impact. host: there is a certainty they will get punished but not for how long. daily costs at secure facilities exceed those of other sanctions. this is in south carolina. it costs more than 30 times intensive probation. what is that mean? what is intensive probation? guest: when you are behind walls, the state needs to pay for a lot of things. food and health care and many other things. this drives the cost on the low end. 70 or $80,000 per youth per year. what treatment looks like is you have heard of probation and

the supervising office. one of the recommendations states are often adopting is more personalized and more intensive by reducing caseloads and spending money on it. you can do that because it is so cheap by comparison. even if you doubled tripled quadrupled the cost of that, it could be a fraction of the cost. the research says combining intensive supervision with two services and senses and the committee can reduce your services at least as well. host: we are talking about juvenile incarceration in this country. experience in the juvenile system. we want to hear from you. dial -- for parents -- law enforcement officers -- all others --

caller: greece in peace be with you to the knowledge of god according to his divine power has given unto us all things godliness through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue whereby are given unto us exceeding great and freshest promises that by these you might be -- of the divine nature having escaped the corruption of the world through lust. the reason i am saying this is that in the prison system or juvenile and older, people are allowed to have a bible and two and to learn more about god to find out about themselves. in our school system, that is not there and we need to learn who they are. man is a spirit. we possess ever -- a soul, our mind and intellect and imagination and the house we live in is our body.

people need the word of god set into their spirit in a way that they could receive and understand it. that is where our creativity comes from. it comes from our spirit. that is why our country is facing so many problems because the supreme court has taken the word of god out of the school system and children do not have parents that take them to church where they are learning the word of god. host: i think we got your point. i will turn to our guest, jake horowitz. guest: the call touches upon different viewpoints and stakeholders on this issue. some people have the assumption that reform is the purview of just one party or one stakeholder group. what we are seeing across the country is a moment of great convergence on the issue. it is keeping influences, different perspectives for the

issue. first, strong supporters of reform, juvenile and the criminal justice system. second is business, saying it is not just how much we spend on the system. it is not the metric we care about. what we care about the returns. compare that to the conservative voice. conservative leaders from across the country, we have governors including in georgia and south dakota. then the counterparts on the left. west virginia, saying i see the research and high costs of the juvenile justice system, and i am here for my constituents, whether they are conservatives or liberals were others. they're saying we want better returns for our system. make it a priority issue for reform. we are seeing -- i think one big picture contests we should keep in mind as there has been a

massive reduction in juvenile crime and juvenile incarceration. what we're seeing now is a convergence and we're talking at the level of governors presidents, chief justices saying this is the issue i want to prioritize. they're bringing stakeholders at the table and applying it to create solutions to the criminal justice system. it is not just one or two, just flew or red. host: let's hear from brenda in maryland. you have experience in the juvenile system. tell us your story. caller: if i could get like a minute and a half, i want to tell you i was incarcerated as a juvenile. in and out of jail. growing up i am 60 years old now, growing up in washington,

d.c., having faced poverty and police are tally and other things, from slavery, we know this is true. we know it is wrong. the problem is there is still a lot of prejudice and the distribution of wealth. this is why the terrorists is going crazy over there. americans having this and that and they cannot have it. they do not understand or know that not all americans have it. two sides of america, north and south. the problem is the distribution of wealth. that comes from the hands and politics. that whole blueblood money and rednecks -- i'm not prejudiced, but this is the problem. guest: if you great points made

there. the first is we know that 87% of the kids locked up in this country are boys. this is a substantial share of girls. it is not just an issue of ways facing time behind bars. the second i think she picked up on is the issue of race. everyone has to acknowledge what is going on here. ask out of 10 kids behind bars are minorities, about 41% of those are black, and 22% are hispanic. the disparities in levels of incarceration are quite stark. there is an important sub context to mention. the levels of juvenile commitment and incarceration have been cut in half since the late 1990's. it is the tale of two trend here. we have both white and black and

hispanic juvenile incarceration all decreasing very substantially. what happened is the white rate of decrease has fallen faster than the black rate of decrease. there are two trends. we have to acknowledge disparity and egg knowledge that overall levels of incarceration at limited half of where they were in the late 1990's. and they decrease very substantially for all racial and ethnic groups. host: do we know the alternatives are working? guest: yes. the research is very strong. meta-analyses bring together all the best researchers to say what is the impact of the policies and eyes quality research to look for results. it is not just a question of whether it is effective. it is a question of is ineffective. it goes to a question of how we build a safety proposal for juveniles. if by freeing up some portion of residential -- we could reinvest

10, 20, $30 million, what could we buy for that? we free up a lot of public resources. where should there's dollars be going? the shares are quite stronger it we know about the impact of the programs and we can monetize those and think about what returns we will get. host: craig in alabama. go ahead. caller: i can only speak from personal spirit spirit i have coached for 30 years and dealt with a lot of young men. i have coached in a lot of different rubes, and i for merely go programs program to trouble and try to correct their issues. i have noticed i have recently come about six or seven years ago, a predominately african-american team, a lot of trouble and a lot of discipline issues and i cannot understand what the difference was. and kids going to jail, breaking into stores and doing things and

getting into trouble. i took a look to see why i was having so much trouble. the team got better and a lot of kids played ball through high school. a lot are going to college and got scholarships and have done a good job. one problem when i went back and did a little research, 71% of african-american households are single parent. out of those single-parent households, 69% of them are multiple father households. it is a stressful environment regardless of the race. when you look at the number of the poverty level of african-american household single pairs, it explains some of the stress, the lack of parenting in all neighborhoods and all communities. and all races. it seems to me after 30 years it seems to be a huge contributor to the problem.

i am not sure locking kids up is going to correct problems. guest: i just want to thank greg for doing that phone. it is so important. sometimes, we have to recognize communities face -- and parents play big role, asking about who should their responsibility. you point to another issue here. that is crime and involvement in communities. i think there is a good way to think about this. only levels of incarceration. there is a very disproportionate share of victimization.

if we could help turn this system around and focus on things we know work advance policies based on research, it will help clear up not just as but involvement of children's families in the courts. host: we will hear from gary next in carolina. tell us your story per what was your experience in the juvenile system? caller: i noticed it was a lot more blacks than whites. the story i was here, and i would see for myself, is the way we got in trouble. the way kids more inside their houses were in their cars, and our black counterparts were standing out on street corners riding their bikes, and it was a lot easier to get ticked off. it was the way the neighborhoods were set up.

it is not so much that it was an imbalance. it was just the way they would be picked up. guest: thank you for the call. there certainly is disparity. while there is disparity, levels for all racial and -- and ethnic groups. we are double-digit percentage reductions in the rate of commitment and overall number behind bars. the other thing i want to pick up on is, what are the kids behind bars for? what crime provokes their involvement? 60% of youth are there for nonviolent crime. we see about a quarter of property offenders, kids who violate supervision, meaningful

shares for a public offense and drug offenses and then violent offenses. then there is the offense. we can say there is property and drug and public order. there is also a level. we see a shocking number of these youth are behind bars for misdemeanor. if you look at the top 10 committing offenses, they are misdemeanor level offenses. we're talking about simple assaults, lower-level violations. host: the next call come from troy and florida. you were an employee of a juvenile correctional facility? caller: yes or i have got my ba in criminology. i work with a behavioral -- i've

seen how it is structured. i want to quickly focus on things i observed that i think could benefit the children. it really has to be about the kids. these are children. it is the juvenile justice system because the children are under the age of 18. one of the ways they are failed is sometimes we are placing children 7, 8, 10, in the same environment, i think your guest had indicated 30% of these kids are doing violent crimes. we're 2 -- weird putting them in an environment with older kids who have committed, in all likelihood, more aggressive, more than just property time -- crime, petty arson or small drug possession kinds of charges.

i think by doing that, we put a lot of the kids in harm's way because many of these structures, many of these programs around the u.s., they are all independent and differently structured here they are all trying very hard to staff them. many times with staff they do not have the experience, the training, the tools necessary to really impact these kids lives and make a difference. you'd -- host: you touched on this earlier. guest: backing up, when he started that comment, an important observation, the joomla! justice in this country has different goals than the criminal justice system. it is to be rehabilitative and not as a punishment. it is the underlying, motivating principle of the system. when we see youth being sent to these state-funded correctional facilities, the question you have to ask is, are they being

rehabilitated? that is when it is so critical of what we see in these studies we talked about the phoenix and philadelphia study. another was done out of chicago looking at judges and how they sent is and what the impacts of those sentences were, and what we see time and again is that the vast majority of youth placement and out of home residential facilities -- if the goal is rehabilitation of the research is saying with these kids, it is not working and we have reassess the underlying system. host: mike and antenna neo, good morning. -- mike in san antonio, good morning. caller: the kids are going to go to jail and things happen, but once they are in there, we need to train them here it we need to train them with skills when i get out. they will probably not go to college. they will probably go back to the environments they come from. if we have trainings where they

are mechanic or aim at -- or a cook or whatever, and they get out and get a decent job, i think that would help with them going back to a life of crime and going back to prison. host: we will take that point. guest: it is not just about skills in terms of what trade you can do. it is skills of thinking through problems, thinking about the future and not only what is in front of you right now. a lot of these facilities are not focused just on the marketable skills, but softer skills of how you live your life and how you live with others and people in positions of authority. bringing those two together, the cognitive haverhill thinking scales is really what -- is skills is really what will help people turner lives around. host: go ahead mark, you are on the air. caller: the system from the

beginning needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. there needs to be people, there was a movie a long time ago, a warden was going to take over a prison, but before he went in there, he was put in as an inmate for a month before to see what was really going on. you get into these, and it is basically like cookie-cutter spirit if a kid comes on the -- comes in there, one might be harder to get through to the other. if you don't want to, slam him in lockdown and we put them out here. it is either, they have got to do this -- a lot of these kids, especially the hoods they are not used to a whole lot of having to listen to somebody. host: ok. i want to hear from brian who also has an experience in the juvenile justice system. go ahead. caller: as a juvenile and adult

offender, it starts with the parents. instead of taking the children help the parents get the tools. a lot of people do not trust the people who should help them, the police, because of the threats of taking the children. when you take the children it affects the children for life. god and love should prevail. guest: a bunch of really interesting ideas. the first idea is building the system from the ground up here and i do not know of any state is really going to that level but what states are showing is they are willing to take a fresh look at the issue and they are point together key stakeholders from across the system and looking at the data and research and asking the questions of what we are currently doing, what is current practice in current policy and how does it compare to best practices, and then looking for consensus-based solutions we think will of reduce crime and the level of

incarceration. the other point i want to pick up on, from the second color who talked about working within the system, none of this is to say that folks within the system have bad intentions. i personally started working in the juvenile justice system about 15 years ago in a residential facility. it is important to note the folks who work in there are almost always there for the right reasons. they do want to work with and help the kids. the question is not whether their intentions are good. it is whether or not the outcomes are there. we have to come back with a lens of, folks are probably there for the right reasons to help these kids. but in the end, the youth emerges from a residential facility and commits crimes at the same rate, had they been the community, what was all that intent and work for? host: and money. we'll go to harriet in florida. go ahead. caller: i have been in the juvenile system. i'm grown now. it did me great. it depends on the individual.

the individual has to want to do better for themselves. if they do not want to everybody is wasting their time. i did good and i am thankful. host: q is next in pennsylvania or you work in a juvenile correctional facility? caller: no. i set up a juvenile community service project for 60 boys who were not incarcerated. they were working off their fines. i chose not to know why they were there. i think it was more successful and over the 20 years of the 60 boys i worked with, i have only seen five other names. i think the community service it is a lot better a system. guest: that point is fantastic.

the research, the most offending peak in the late teens and early 20's, out of any intervention most youth -- you point to a great point here. we need to resist the urge to bring kids to the system if it might do harm to them. we need to provide opportunities for them to change their lives if they want to, and then we want to know that the researchers bear out that many kids go on the street and narrow when they enter their 20's regardless. host: go ahead with your question or comment. caller: this is a county where kids for cash, where the juveniles for no reasons at all some of them, very small and minute. children being put into a juvenile system by two judges and a builder that built a large

detention center from them. my comment is i really believe and think a lot of times, our system alone is not the problem. the problem can be the 12 hour work shifts that he does parents are working 12 hour work shifts. a lot of children are left at home alone. they come -- they become friends with people who get them in trouble because they have no one at home to guide them. i just totally believe the 12 hour work shifts system has done a great damage to the american family. thank you very much. guest: i think that counties story, which received a lot of coverage, is a troubling story that shakes your faith in how public services is supposed to work. i do not think it is the dominant storyline today.

focusing on this as a priority policy issue, the research, the cost are sky high. host: monica on twitter says this -- we have got a couple of minutes left ear with -- here with jake horowitz, focusing on juvenile incarceration. let's go to martha in illinois. caller: my son started getting in trouble when he was in eighth grade. he was in and out of juvenile detention. and the problem i was had when

he was in judy, he ended up serving five years in prison -- in prison as an adult. the problem i had is when he had community service since his crime was classified violent, he could not -- the only kind of community service he could do was maybe be like, watch a cop car. kids labeled violent are doing committee service that does not help them one bit. guest: tito's fascinating things to pick up on with the caller in illinois. first is the issue of how we define offenses as opposed to how we talk about kids. a kid might be presenting an offense that categorizes a statute as an offense, but there is a lot of variation. we can talk about simple assaults, much more heinous crimes to be concerned about.

the second is the risk level. it is not just about the priors and history and what they might do in the future and thinking about, this is a kid who built up quite a bit of history, or did this kid just make it that mistake one day? just because the caller is from illinois, i want to pick up on a lot of callers have pointed to the importance of money in the system. i do not think it is just private interests, those those exist. the other incentive is the state and county insensitive -- incentive. judges made probation parole and committee services. juvenile incarceration almost always funded by the state. states have a hard time moving the money where it needs to go.

that does not help the counties that a need to provide these services locally. illinois developed a great model, redeploy, in statute, and channels savings from the general incarceration state-level into the counties that help achieve reductions in incarceration. a sustainable model spreading across the state and juvenile adults system, a rare instance where the adult system is picked up and spread to other states. ohio had a similar program in george and others are now adopting it. host: let's hear from walter in new orleans, a parent there. go ahead with your question or comment. caller: my question is more, the contact juveniles have with the criminal justice system, which i see is normally -- put in jail and the parents having to bail

them out, and then the police officers, this happened repeatedly with children. whenever they go look for a job ever been arrested, it is something that shows up on the record that prevents them from getting a job. . host: i think we got your point that is difficult to hear you. guest: low offenses will bring a child into the juvenile justice system but then they are under the watch of the juvenile justice system. a status that only pertain to youth, alcohol violations, they might pick up a record and now they are under supervision.

if they do something that breaks the rules, drugs, skipping school, they can then and up in the deep end of the system. it is not a primary driver of the general justice system, but we see a non-negligible share of the system that come in for initially rather modest offenses, built of a continuing record of low violations, and then a residential facility, which research shows does not reduce crime and a -- they consume public resources elsewhere. my website has many of the research pieces, public opinion as well as a bunch of fact sheets that show how your state compares. host: coming up next, we will talk with johns hopkins university professor lester spence. he will join us to continue our

discussion of criminal justice reform. we will take a look at we will be right back. ♪ >> sunday night on c-span's "q&a ,", kit brouwer on the world with the white house through the eyes of the people who work there, from the -- from the kennedys to the obama's. >> they are an incredible family, nine members of the family in a. i interviewed the only current

part-time butler there. he works every week at the white house. nine members of the family were there. his uncle john, the head butler. he told me my uncles ran the white house. they brought him in when he was 17 years old in 1959 during the eisenhower administration and he is still working there and he describes how he used to work in the kitchen and he was a skinny little guy. they kept giving him ice cream to eat. a dying breed and he remembers that. that is what i wanted to use to pay tribute to these people. >> sunday night on c-span's "q&a." >> here are book festivals we will be covering this spring. we will visit maryland for live

coverage of the gettysburg book festival with tom davis as well as the former senior adviser to president obama, david axelrod. we will close it out in new york city where the public -- publishing industry showcases its upcoming book. then we are alive for the chicago tribune, including our three-hour live program including author lawrence wright and your phone calls. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back. our conversation continues today about the criminal justice system and we are joined now by lester spence here to talk about racial and social economic factors. let's begin talking about the divide in this country, of long, racial, economic factors.

describe it. where is the divide and how big is it? guest: you think about all the resources governments allocate that kind of state hallowell we are able to live, they shape our access to government and a range of things. black people and nonwhite people in general are usually at the bottom. you think about health issues. black people are usually sicker. if you think about education issues black people have less access to quality education than whites do. if you think about wealth issues, housing issues, black people have less access to quality housing. it is particularly important in understanding what is going on in places like baltimore in detroit and the st. louis area and ferguson. host: you wrote recently in a

piece that baltimore is a time bomb. before freddie gray's death that was the spark, the city was dangerously divided. how so? guest: i'm a professor at johns hopkins university. tuition is somewhere around $40,000 a year. there are only three public high schools in baltimore that have kids that can routinely be strong enough to go to hopkins. baltimore has dozens of high schools. so if you are talking about a set of policies going back to the 19th century they have kind of put their foot on black people's next. over time, in a couple of instances in the last 50 years that has generated significant pushback. when martin luther king was assassinated and then most

recently last week ago, we had an uprising in reaction to freddie gray's's death. a lot of people focus on attitudes. black people are thinking one thing and white people are thinking another. it is important to understand there are an array of resources routinely withheld from black populations and nonwhite populations in general. host: i want you to respond to the former governor of maryland. the former maryland governor argued more money is not the answer to fixing baltimore's problems. take a look. >> i would indulge to some extent the idea of healing. who is against healing? we have to go. but, if it is healing on familiar terms, if it is the same old mo the same old

paradigm you heard out of the president's mouth and others -- we need more money, $22 trillion -- if that is the premise, i will not play. those folks in those neighborhoods should not play. policymakers should not play. we should not indulge it because if it is just that nobody should be surprised if we see a repeat in three months, six months, nine months, three years, 10 years. i would not be surprised to see the same conditions if it is the same paradigm. hopefully, you pray that something good can come of this. host: what is your reaction? guest: certainly, if you think

about municipal spending, there are ways in which throwing more money at the problem has made the problem worse. proximally 1991, baltimore's's city spent approximately $37 million in parks and rec. 2015 they spent about $37 million on parks and rec. 1991, they spent about 170 million on police. 2015, they spent about $450 million on police. the vast majority of that money being kind of on zero tolerance basically anti-black strategy. if that is what he is talking about, then yes, throwing more money on the problem makes it worse. host: the washington times editorial, they write that the liberal mantra is to transform these areas must be refuted by colfax. president obama's law assigned

$1.8 billion to the city of baltimore including 26.5 million dollars for crime prevention. guest: there has been like a sweep of government policies that have basically extorted wealth from black people and moved it, whether you're talking about housing policies that took black neighborhoods and label them is not worthy of investment whether you are talking about policies that routinely cause black people to get less bang for their buck as far as taxes and education, the only way to deal with that is policy that kind of puts money behind innovative solutions. there is not a way around that. it is interesting. you think about baltimore city and baltimore county or detroit

where i am from, those suburbs those areas were created by the g.i. bill, millions of dollars spent. it was also created by the national highway defense act. millions and millions of dollars in spending. i do not see how we all the sudden say government does not work when it comes to deal with liberal and radical needs. host: let's get our viewers involved. we're talking with lester spence professor at johns hopkins university. if you're living in an urban area, you can call -- marielle is in brooksville, florida. go ahead. you're on the air. caller: i would like to know if

they did not destroy their own neighborhood which is a shame they're asking people to help them rebuild their neighborhood when they destroyed it. i could see a hurricane or something like that, but not when you destroy your own neighborhood, if they did not destroy, people would build stores there and people would have jobs. there would be walmart and other places and people would not mind building places there for people to work. host: we got your point. go ahead and respond. guest: it would be interesting to show pictures of baltimore. a lot of the viewers, maryland into -- included, probably soft pictures of what they thought was baltimore the whole city, like oh my gosh, the whole city is on fire. there were only a few hotspots.

if you go to the neighborhoods where the hotspots were, and take pictures of them just two weeks ago, you see if they suffer from this -- for decades. it is not a new thing, first of all her second of all i just -- it is important to understand the issue people rebelled against. you are talking about an issue in which a kid, freddie gray, basically had his spine broken by police. so police are supposed to serve and protect people in the neighborhood, but the people in the neighborhood tend to view police as an occupying force. if we think about them in their own neighborhoods without taking the political dynamic, what we end up doing is rendering them less than human and it ends up being really difficult to understand their actions as

being one of a long set of actions of people basically prevail -- rebelling against resident government. host: leon, go ahead. caller: morning, united states. my name is leon. i am 58 years old. in 1965, the great society program was directed toward my generation. we had a lot of youth programs at times crying prevention for the full year's of funding from congressman rangle as well as professor clark, who started what they called -- it lasted until about 1965 all the way through 71, and it was money in the pipeline that put 2500 young black american men on the path

of the straight and narrow. many of them have gone on to college. we have all talked about it. why is this program not being funded at the state federal and local areas of crime prevention? i saw a segment where the governor says he is not planning on giving any money to crime prevention programs. but we put more into incarceration than we put into education for children, and students. i have estimated by looking at it, for whatever we put in for education, new york as an example, $15,000 per child to get educated. if that child goes to jail for a year, the taxpayer has to pay $60,000 per year to have that person set up in jail and do absolutely nothing. so we are talking about the area

of crime fighting as opposed to prevention. you are saying, professor, that some of the money has been spent. a lot of the money has been spent wrongly and i agree. because when they had a welfare program that started out in the 1960's and went through the 1970's, it just estimated -- it just decimated the black community. guest: i agree with what the caller is saying. i want to go back to that figure from earlier -- $37 million. there has basically been no change in 30 years. police presence has increased almost 300%. we have two re-shift our priority, and what happened in baltimore, what happened in ferguson, and to a certain extent in new york, i am hoping that it generates more political will from the grassroots going up for spending programs we know work.

host: why does it work? what does the money go for? guest: for providing an array of programs that allows kids to spend more time in community centers. they go toward the building of community centers themselves. baltimore used to have somewhere around 60, 70 community centers. that number has been cut in war than half. -- in more than half. it goes into a number of programs designed to make parts better, so you have green space where people can interact in. that creates better relationships between individuals and developed trust in government. most of the people and places like winchester where freddie gray was killed, the only government is in the form of a fist that expands their trust in government. that has all types of outcomes going for it. that education versus incarceration number just does not make sense that in a nation

that professes to be one of the best in the world, one of the best on the planet, that it spends more incarcerating people on average than it does educating. host: we hear from craig next from maine. go ahead, craig. caller: i wanted to tell mr. spence -- i certainly did not want to call this morning and ruin his morning but i completely am shocked as to where this country is going. i think we are on the path to finishing this country. he is complaining about money going to the inner cities. billions upon billions of dollars go to these areas. hundreds of billions of dollars get funneled to these corrupt inept school unions. people are graduating that cannot even read.

people have to step over drug addicts -- these kids have no chance. there are seven out of 10 children born out of wedlock with no parent or little parenting, and mr. spence you are complaining about what you do not get in the cities. well, let me tell you about the rural parts of america. we have to hold bake sales to get football uniforms. we have to have car washes to get cheerleading uniforms to be able to have baseball fields. we get scraps. the bulk of america's money is poured into the cities. if you are willing to really take a hard look at where this money goes and how it is spent there is not one american that would not lock arms with you and wish you well.

do you think we want to see these children with no hope and no future? you are pointing your weapons at the wrong people. it is the system, the political framework that you have in these areas. there is not a republican in miles. there is not a conservative anywhere near these areas, and yet instead of building to the foot a government there saying you have let us down, where is all this money going, you sit on tv and complain that it is somehow america's fault. host: i want to give lester spence a chance to respond. guest: here is where craig has a really great point, that a number of the problems that people face in really hard hit urban neighborhoods are shared by their rural counterparts. but the challenge is that unlike our rural counterparts,

people in cities, in hard-hit urban neighborhoods, they tend to have a sense that government actually has a role to play in solving problems that they created. to a certain extent, craig evinces the idea that government itself is a problem. that is the first thing. the second thing is that it is important to understand that i am not making a claim necessarily that resources are spent that we are not getting enough money. what i am making an argument for is the type -- that we are not getting enough government. the type of government that we actually are getting. that area where freddie gray was killed, they spend $47 million a year in incarcerating. that is government spending. that government that nobody needs. and, yes, part of it is about

kind of political representatives that do not represent, that do not represent their constituents. to that extent it is about developing a political culture where individuals can say you are not doing what we wanted you to do. in fact, i would argue that that is why marilyn mosby is in office right now as opposed to the person she ran against area that is a bipartisan dynamic but it is not like we are looking on millions upon millions of dollars spent progressively to the with these issues in these cities. what they are getting is policing. host: lester spence, political science associate professor at johns hopkins. temple hills maryland, high, jason. caller: i get it. i am from pg county. i have lived on both sides of the spectrum. i came up in a rough area.

it is not as bad as baltimore some parts but some of what is missing -- and i think you are really misconstruing -- some people are just trifling. i am pretty sure he understands that. you could be broke but you do not have to be -- yeah, trifling. that is a mindset. trifling is not black or white it is just the person. you have choices in life. i am going to wake up and brush my teeth. you can go to a dollar store. some stuff is basic common sense. what are you going to do day to day, and some people are going to do good and some people are not. i am still doing what i am doing. i have three kids and i am married and i make $90,000 a year now.

guest: talking about how much you make on c-span, people are going to come get you. caller: and that is fine. i graduated school with a e average, but when i greatbatch i had a b average. but when i graduated, i had choices. what are you doing with life? you complain they do not give us enough money. on the street level, we don't even see that. we make choices. when you make the wrong choices you get -- i have gotten pulled over many times because i was black and i knew that -- i knew what that was. but when i got pulled over, i talked to him and you see, that is not what it was. when a cop is in an urban area, a cop does not know who is who. it is hard because --

guest: can i interrupt you just for a second? for real, for real, here is an issue. you take those choices, and you made a brilliant point. you are like, black people, white people, brown people, are all random and trifling. it is about the same, pretty much. so how are we to explain -- is our rambling and trifling is the same -- if for example black people are less likely to use drugs than white and less likely -- but the arrests are much higher, where does choice play a role in that? we can say that choice plays a role as an individual. i was about to say a name. you could point to that single random and trifling person and say you got what you deserve. but when you talk about a neighborhood full of them and you go to another neighborhood

where people make a little bit more loot, where people have a little bit more education, they do the same rambling and trifling stuff but do not get arrested for it they are still able to go on with their lives. that is politics. caller: i get what you are trying to say. guest: i am not trying to say. i am saying it. caller: i hear exactly what you are saying. a code red area -- yeah, i am most likely going to get arrested than in the suburbs because i look like the same thing. that is just common sense. guest: that is political. caller: if i am in an area that is not known for drugs but i go into another area that is known for selling crack, you know where the crackheads are at, you know where the strip is. if you have crack on you, that is a problem. if you do not, you are let go. guest: i feel you.

i grew up in a neighborhood like that. i have five kids, three of them boys. what you are kind of saying is that it is ok for my kid in that neighborhood to have to be fearful of the police -- not just fearful of the gangs, but fearful of the police, that we pay taxes to. no no. we have been hearing that -- one of the narratives that has been produced and reproduced for over 150 years is this narrative that for black people, for black people together citizenship right, they actually have to act right. in the constitution that says, for example, you only have free speech if your pants are -- what we have to do is combine the individual responsibility narrative that i can give to my kids with the larger political critique that, no, if we have

this span of gaps -- there are people for whom life is consistently hard, and they are random -- there rambling and trifling is about average but they are still consistently hard, we have to point to government because government is usually the culprit. this is not the way things are supposed to be done and we can do it another way. host: let's go on to ira in lewisburg, north carolina. former law enforcement? go ahead. caller: good morning, professor smith -- professor spence. i am former law enforcement, and i'm going to give you a story. i am former law enforcement in a town called wilmington, north carolina. the second or third night i went out with my field training officer, he said do you know what they call in nightstick?

i said what? he said we call it an "n" knocker. i will not say it on c-span. that gives me an insight into the attitude that law enforcement has toward black people. now, how can we have this conversation outside the historical context of like peoples experience in this country is beyond me. slavery is an injury black people have suffered that has never been redressed. also wilmington, in another period of time that has never been discussed, they have a majority of black citizens. the white citizens decided they did not like lack folks -- black

folks, so they overthrew the local government. black people had to leave on the backs of horse carts, bales of hay. black people in wilmington north carolina, have never recovered. there might be less than flies -- than five black businesses in that city until today. guest: i think what we are talking about is a set of public policies going back to slavery and going forward that consistently prevent blacks from getting access to wealth, that prevents blacks from building the types of institution that they need to get a full suite of citizenship rights from government. that nightstick thing -- that is real. i have been talking about anti-black police. it is under -- it is important to understand that there is a

significant difference. we are not talking about anti-black people, we are talking about anti-black working-class policing, policing that shows people the fist of government consistently in neighborhoods like winchester, where freddie gray was killed, and that is something that we have to -- he is absolutely right. i do not see how we can talk about these incidences without talking about race, without talking about racism and class for it host:. host: oscar, good morning. caller: i would like to ask craig to download yesterday's "washington journal." i commend you. you had a great piece with mr. eisenberg. he broke it down specifically. he broke it down so perfectly yesterday morning.

he explained how the inner cities have been subjected to even home purchasing. i encourage you to look at that "wall street journal" from yesterday morning. when i grew up in washington d.c., we had a great mayor. it was not marion barry at the time. he became mayor around late 1969. when i was 17, -- you may have heard it. i am 57, so a long time ago. in the 1960's, 1873, 1974, he would give jobs, summer youth programs. we had blue jumpsuits. we would enjoy ourselves cleaning the streets, like team players. these guys got together and we cleaned the streets. i would recommend that this

mayor in baltimore, she should listen and capture a little piece of marion barry's policies in washington, d.c. and learn and implement these policies. and the city council -- you can be black all 12 of you can be black on the city council, but if you do not have a leading mayor in that office who will implement policy change for the inner city youth strategically putting down these bordered up -- these boarded-up houses, putting in a starbucks a subway, and getting these kids jobs, that is how it is done. guest: so it is kind of a broad national context. there was a moment where cities in general got money directly from the federal government to do with social service provisions. but after 1970's support for

that wendell, and then with the election of reagan you see that money significantly cut, and then the city possibility -- and then the city's ability -- the city is engaging in entrepreneurial activities that give tax cuts for downtown development in the hopes that would trickle down -- in the baltimore context -- what camden yards? i think it cost around $110 million or so to build -- the orioles only spent $9 million. the rest of that came from taxes. going back to using detroit they are about to build a red wings stadium, $400 million stadium. it is all tax money. what you see is this use of city resources, government resources, to reproduce the gap between the house and have-nots.

because blacks tend to be part of the have knots, they are losing out. in the baltimore case, we have a strong mayor system where mayor stephanie rawlings blake holds a lot of cards. what would be really positive would be if mayors like stephanie rawlings-blake actually spoke clearly about the need for more investment in these neighborhoods and started pushing corporate investors like under armour to give resources to be corporate citizens. host: from columbus, ohio, you are on the air. caller: there are two things i would like to address. the fact that historically we had destroyed the best leader we ever had, and that was in booker t. washington. professor spence, i really would like for you to read "death in 60 days: who silenced booker t

washington" by paulette davis horton. i am going to read something out of the book that she had wrote. she had stated that, "the american white power structure opted for someone who shared the views of a social philosopher such as dubya eb dubois. -- such as web dubois. the social collegiate of the black group structure started replacing the practical teachers of science and industry. president luther foster got rid of the trades, which is something booker t. washington felt strongly was the way for blacks to secure their destiny. my other concern is what dr. julianne malveaux said on a panel on "face the nation."

and with a panel of others, whom i do not recall their names, but i just wanted to know how you feel about police being more trained than just two months at a police academy, but having a two-year associates degree or a four-year college degree would make a difference. guest: we will have lester spence respond. guest: i think police training is a significant issue of contention from the data i have. baltimore spends 57 times more on swat teams than on police community relations. that is something that is really important. police, as far as their training on how to deal with violence, they train consistently to be punitive as opposed to more nonviolent approaches. so there is a whole suite of policies that we can implement in order to make police act more

humanely. as far as the booker t. washington thing, i have seen a bit on the washington versus dubois case. businesses owned by the worker -- there has been a push in baltimore from a number of activists for more worker cooperatives as opposed to kind of business development where you might have a black capitalist make money, but lack workers make less. the worker court -- you might have a black capitalist make money, what black workers make less. and provide kind of a ranging need for those communities and offer -- offer to employ a number of them. one of your charges about incarceration is that one of you -- once you have a record, nobody wants to hire you. in a neighborhood where a lot of the folks have record, it even

for minor things, they're basically unemployable. so developing worker cooperatives can help employ them and build capital and build economic capital. host: we talked a little bit about the whole than the box movement -- and the box movement. we are not done yet. we go to danielle in milwaukee -- daniel in milwaukee. caller: thank you. in october of 2012, four bill walkie policeman were indicted -- four no walkie -- four milwaukee, wisconsin, policeman were indicted third one officer received 26 months for a felony. another received several hundred fine -- several hundred dollar fine, and the other two were returned to duty. how can a community have any

trust in the police when this exists and has not been addressed? guest: that is it. in fact, an argument can be made that you need to build a healthy distrust of police. when you think about it, we have had a lot of conservative callers. but one thing conservatives are known for articulating is that healthy distrust to government. they rarely apply that when it comes to policing of lack communities. -- of black communities. healthy conservative skepticism of the police is warranted. that skepticism is not just about individual officers, how we deal with individual officers. it deals with the police as an institution. that skepticism can cause us to say, you know what, i do not think it is a good idea that we give police 300% more resources

when all they are doing is basically anti-black. host: what about black police officers? there was a piece by a black police officer about how people in freddie gray's neighborhood will tell you it is a black police officers who come down on them just as hard. guest: there is a ice cube quote, "black police coming out for the -- racism is about the subject. it is about -- i'm sorry, the object. it is about these black kids who are being policed. we want black people to be employed, that could be a good look. what we are talking about is change, simply adding more police officers is not going to do a thing. host: kevin in randallstown

maryland, law enforcement. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am a 22 year veteran of the baltimore city police department, lived in baltimore city all of my life. i am a pastor now. i was on the front line when we were protesting and trying to quiet down the community in baltimore. what i would like to say is that the police officers that i have worked with in the neighborhoods i have worked for our good neighborhoods, good officers. certainly we do have some officers who abuse their authority and abuse their power. but the citizens that i served in the predominantly african-american neighborhoods do not see police or law enforcement for being occupied. it is the media that is portraying law enforcement with a black eye, because all across

the country there are thousands of citizens who have been helped by law enforcement officers who love doing their job and love serving. there are a few, just as in c-span, johns hopkins, politics education -- there are a few people who just think that they can take advantage of the disenfranchised. so when we paint the picture in law enforcement, let's not paint it with a broad brush that says all law enforcement is corrupt and evil. that is not the case. because i can give you thousands of people that i have dealt with in the inner-city who love police. that is all i want to say. guest: so some of my fraternity brothers are cops here in baltimore. -- i am sorry, back home in baltimore, back home in detroit. a number of my radical

colleagues are -- i am not necessarily one of those. but at the same time, i am not one of those folks who say that police problems are a problem is a bad apple problem. i think it is a combination of -- i think it is a public policy issue. you can take when governor o'malley, former governor o'malley was the mayor of baltimore -- and i think a four-year period, he arrested more people than baltimore has. he made approximately 700,000 arrests, and baltimore has 640 thousand people. those arrests were later found to be illegal, and they were changing people's lives changing people's orientation toward police in general. yes, there are some people who are interested in doing their jobs and upholding to the best of their ability -- their badge to the best of their