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 ability to

the stand that i could make it to a good look. to enhance our ability to live our lives. but there is a set of public policies that incense of i's -- that incentivize police to perform poorly. when you think about the law enforcement officers bill of rights that maryland has, when they are caught performing poorly police, over 100 people died in police custody. it is very hard to indict them. you do not want a circumstance even if everybody -- even in the vast majority of police officers are really good folks going back to that conservative sense of skepticism, i would argue give a institution like that too much power and even good folks are going to go bad. host: lester spence, associate professor of political science at johns hopkins university. you can follow him on twitter and go to leicesterspent -- to

leicester-- twoo lesterspence.com. thank you for watching "washington journal. we will bed back -- we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. [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] announcer: new attorney general loretta lynch will make her first appearance on capitol hill today since appearing -- since taking office.

the senate appropriations subcommittee meets at 10:30 eastern, live on c-span. later today defense secretary ashton carter is expected to brief reporters, joined by the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs, general martin dempsey. and voters in the united kingdom are making parliamentary choices around the nation. polls close at 10:00 p.m. local time, 5:00 p.m. eastern in the u.s. coverage will include extensive interviews from across the country. and studio analysis, recent polls suggest no one party will win a majority. the outcome of the election is too close to call. we find out more from this morning's "washington journal." host: why is it so close, and how close is it? guest: it is great to be with you. it is absolutely fascinating. covering 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, conservative party on the right and the labour party on the left. our 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: announcer: our election coverage on itv comes up today at 4:00 55 -- at 4:55 eastern on c-span. there is news in the last settlements from new york city that the federal appeals report says that the bulk collection of data -- a three-judge panel says the case brought by the american civil liberties union illustrated the complexity of balancing privacy interests and the nation's security. more details as we get them. just a reminder, as we cover that case and the appeals process, we hope to air that later in our program schedule. coming up in 20 minutes attorney general loretta lynch testifying on her 2016, justice

department 2016 justice department budget. until then, more of "washington journal." [laughter] we are focused -- host: right now we want to begin the discussion on on sentencing and corruption. today is -- our guest is fred patrick. let's begin with how many people are currently in the u.s. prison system. ing, 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 >> ♪ caller: why are people pushing for more laws?

it seems pretty stupid. guest: a big part of how we got here was the 1994 crime bill in which there was just increasing funding for prisons, increasing mandatory minimums, it eliminating benefits for individuals who were incarcerated. a huge driver to the mess we are in now, is what laws were passed by congress. just yesterday, former president bill clinton talked about the fact that a lot of that should be reconsidered. a lot of those things in the rush to deal with what they thought were crime problems, there was an overkill, in essence. just yesterday, president bill clinton talked about rolling back a lot of things. he recognizes that in hindsight 2020, you damaged lives. you had folks who were in carpet rated -- who were incarcerated with the hopes that they were better off when they would get

out. when you do not increase training you do not create a pathway for those folks who come home being better off. host: the president is in africa for the clinton foundation, one of the global initiatives. here is what he told cnn about the 1994 crime bill. bill clinton: my criminal justice initiative was to put 100,000 more police on the street and create more positive activities for young people. ban assault weapons, and limit the magazine size pass the brady bill. and the republicans basically wanted to emphasize restructure, and i wanted to pass a bill. i did go along with it, and there was a whole movement toward emphasizing that,

especially the three strikes deal because we had evidence that a very small percentage of the criminal population created a very high percentage of the committed high percentage of the serious crimes. the problem is that the way it was implemented, we cast too wide a net. we wonder 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 that when they came out that they could live productive lives. i think one of the most hopeful things that has happened in american life is that we are all faced, from going from conservative republicans to liberal democrats saying there are too many people in jail, and the ones that we can rebuild take -- that we can rehabilitate come we are wasting too much money. i strongly support what she is

doing, and i think any policy adopted while i was president in front should be changed host: the former president talking about the 1994 crime bill, saying it should be revisited. that is our topic this morning, the criminal justice system, what reforms you think are needed? fred patrick is our guest -- the bureau institute for justice director of their center on sentencing and corrections. ralph in new york, an independent caller. caller: i have a couple of comments before i have a question. i was in prison and i know a lot of folks in jail. what happens to --