director talks about centrist candidates in 2018. and usa today's kevin johnson on cause to protecting the president and his family. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. eastern monday morning. join the discussion. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> next, a look at how private prisons operate. this discussion includes a former warden from a california and a reporter who works as a private prison guard as part of an investigative story for mother jones. from the commonwealth club of

california, this is an hour and 15 minutes. everyone.ening, im.name is mina k i in the friday host forum, and i'm glad that marissa is not my editor. if i had to keep it to 50 words, my god. welcome toonh's ogm thnfum nit'prrataleth quti srodiorrot nime, d etr ivate prisons help or harm the criminal justice system. this is an important question because private prisons have in making a comeback under president trump. they are poised to grow as well under his law and order approach, and also his immigration policies.

course civic is for really corrections corporation of america, or cca. we have a really incredible panel joining us tonight. shane bauer, to my right, is a senior reporter for mother jones. he spent four months as a private prison guard and brought us a first-hand account of what happens in these prisons. he is also the author of "sliver of light," about his imprisonment in iran.welcome , shane bauer. [applause] >> and next to shane is jeannie a former undersecretary of california department of corrections and rehabilitation, and a strong opponent of the death penalty. jeannie woodford, thanks for coming. [applause] and lec santos flew in --

alicia santos flew in. she works with the u.s. criminal justice system. she recently wrote an extensive piece on the business of private prison transport and some of the horrific, literally horrific, conditions people face, being driven thousands of miles on private vans or buses. thanks for joining us all the way from new york. [applause] i want to start by giving the audience some context alicia,, of the u.s. private prison population. the total prison population is about 2 million, is that right? what proportion of that is private? >> the 2 million includes people in jail, that's about 600,000 people. not including the jail population, you have 1.5 million people in state or federal prison. 126,000,ose, there are based on 2015 numbers, held in a

private facility. a private facility operated by one of the 29 states that operates those types of state prisons. it is about 8% of the total prison population. those numbers don't include the number of people held in private immigration detention facilities. those numbers are somewhere around 30,000 people total, with about two thirds held in private facilities. the majority of people in immigration detention are in a private facility. >> jeannie, do you know what the figures are in california, in terms of how many california prisoners are in private prisons? >> so when i was with this california department of rehabilitation, we had cap the state of 4500, and as a result of the three-judge panel decision, they had to reduce the number of inmates being held in california prisons that the state contracted with prisons out-of-state to house inmates in excess of the cap.

that number has been coming down but i believe there are still a couple thousand or a little more that are housed in private prisons in other states. what is theer, appeal of private prisons for states and local entities? what do they promise? companies, andon their main arguments for their existence is that they save money. cheaper,, they are although there was recently a federal study by the department of justice that basically showed much, andost is not there are a lot of conflicting things. some say they cause more in the end. there are issues in california where private prison companies won't take prisoners with serious medical issues, so that cost is essentially offset to the public prisons. there are a lot of hidden costs like this, that when you see the

number of how much they are saving, it really isn't fleshed out. >> so when they say they save $17 per inmate per day, the statistic i have seen, it's a little fuzzy. >> you. the main way they save money is through what they pay their staff. they are cutting a lot of corners, generally. staffing is the main cost of running a prison. when you pay the staff less it cost less money. >> and you know that firsthand from working in a private prison, but before i get to that, i want to flesh out how private prisons get paid. alicia santos, is it true that they get paid per in may they have, and -- per inmate they have, and also that they have occupancy requirements that they put on states or local governments? >> as far as i am aware, that per prisoner, per bed contract, in which there have been guarantees about what that population will remain at, so

obviously that can lead to lobbying for certain types of laws that would keep that level the same, such as maybe not reducing mandatory minimums, because then you will have a more steady population of people, or lowering certain criminal penalties. that is how they have often been structured. governmentsens if don't meet the occupancy requirements, and what kind of penalty exists, shane bauer? >> generally the contract of the prison i worked at guaranteed any 5% occupancy rate, which means if it falls below 95%, the government will pay the rate as if 95% of the prisoners were there. >> so essentially taxpayers. >> right, right. >> basically what you are describing, alicia santos, is an industry that is incentivized to have as many people, or the

demand for inmates, to keep the demand for inmates high, and it sounds like you are saying fight against laws that would reduce that prison population, such as fighting against reducing mandatory minimums or leniency or things like that. jeannie, you are not in. >> yes. included in their annual report is exactly those statements, the threat if there is any change in sentencing laws, changes in drug enforcement laws, changes in immigration status, would influence, would affect their bottom line. they have to put that in their annual report, because they need to let people who buy their stock no what the risk is, and any progressive policies, there is a risk to their bottom line. >> how powerful ou are they as a lobby? >> they are incredibly powerful.

they give lots of donations to candidates for office, and or have been lots of stories during the presidential campaign about the private prisons given money to rubio and other people running to become president. their influence is pretty great. >> i just wanted to point out, too, that publicly run prisons also operate on incentives. for example, i was a reporter in upstate new york, and during the time it was reporting their, there was a huge effort to close prisons, and private prisons aren't allowed in new york state, but that didn't stop it from being a very difficult thing to try to do. the unions were fighting really hard against it, the politicians were in their, they pushed really hard against it. i just want to point it out, that those types of things exist in public sector prisons, too, in the same types of horrific conditions.

>> which then raises the question, jeannie woodford, are state run institutions better than private prisons? >> it absolutely depends on the state, because of how much you put into your prisons that make the system good or bad, right? i think we are fortunate in california to have a governor who cares about public safety, who believes what we do inside our prisons matters to our communities, so there is an emphasis on rehabilitation. i know you mentioned earlier that you have just been in san quentin and saw the many programs. with our current governor and legislation those are being put all over california. it's better than other states, really depends on the public getting involved and interested in what happens inside prison systems. >> as the warden of san quentin, you are really focused on what you believe should be the mission of prisons, which is a

rehabilitative function, correct? so what is the interests of a private prison, what impact do you think they have on the rehabilitative function of prisons? >> i think their bottom line is profit. i have been in some private prisons, and they only do what is in the contract. if they're contracted to provide certain services, that is all they will provide, and they are not looking to improve public policy. they are not looking to evolve a system to make it better for the individuals in it, which makes it better for public safety in general. view, as ant of public servant having spent 30 years in the criminal justice system here in california, i always thought of public safety more broadly, and i always believe that what we did inside our prisons had an impact in our communities. and i also believe that we needed to follow the science and the data, and that is why i

implemented data-driven decision-making in the department of corrections through a program called comstat. i think that is what they should be about, evolving to follow the science of criminal justice. as a result of california's attitude toward that, we have seen some really vast improvements in our sentencing laws here in the state. as an example, keeping nonserious, nonviolent, nonsex offenders out of prison at the local level. we have a lot more to do, but that was a huge, huge step in california towards a better system. shouldn't totally create that dichotomy between the state and the private, theuse the states run -- states are contracted and these private companies oversee -- from what i have seen, it's not even an issue of companies doing what the contract requires. they don't even do that a lot of the time.

the states don't have much of a means to enforce these contracts. i don't know of them writing into the contract penalties for contract -- they will say they can revoke contracts, but they don't do that. it's still the responsibility of the state that these prisoners are running this way, ultimately. >> there was an inspector general report that basically sound that in private -- basically found that in private prisons there was a higher rate of assault, on prison staff and between inmates, and you were in a prison, you were in the correctional facility in louisiana, medium security. did that play out in your experience? were they unsafe? >> it did, yeah. the prison i was in was very violent. there were stabbings every week.

and thered stabbings, are stabbings and all prisons, there is violence in all prisons, but when i left and looked at the data, there was -- not just more violence, but more use of force, and it comes down to the issue that it was way understaffed, for one. there were very minimal education programs. a lot of times i didn't get to go outside. >> when you say understaffed, what was the ratio? >> i would come in to work and there would be days where there were 25 guards for 1500 inmates. i worked in the unit with 350 prisoners with one other guard. we just had radios. were not really doing much. and the medical is a lot worse. all this stuff adds up to this frustration for people living of 44 living in a dorm

then all day long, and people fight. fights break out. there are a lot of drugs and contraband in prison, guards that make nine dollars per hour, try to make ends meet selling drugs. on top of that, when i was there, i was noting whenever there was a stabbing, i would write it down, the date. when i left, i texted the department of corrections to see how many of them the company reported. they are required to report all of them. in a two-month period, i knew about ten or so, and in that ten-month period, they reported five. and this is -- >> they weren't all been reported. >> right.and as journalists , we look for these documents, but the people writing the documents are lying so they are worthless. we can't know that unless they are there.

>> so a few things. part of the reason the staffing level is so low is why? >> because it's nine dollars per hour. >> you got paid nine dollars per hour to be a prison guard. >> yet. and it was in a very poor town in louisiana, really rundown. still, even though it was so poor, there were not a lot of people willing to work there for nine dollars per hour. the people that did work there, many of them were single moms that needed insurance for their kids, needed a job. in paid $.50 more than mcdonald's and walmart. >> this was a prison run by core civic? >> yeah. >> what you are saying is that they paid you very little and cap staffing levels low to maximize their profit? >> so the prison itself, they wanted to hire more people, but they don't get to set the pay.

that is all done at the corporate office in nashville. it kind of create this culture where everybody who works there is frustrated with the corporation. everyone i met, other than the top level staff, inmates and staff, hated the company. they felt like they were all being used in some way so that these people they never meet can make money. the warden was trying to get a raise. there was a one dollar raise when i was there, but people come in, and the turnover is so great because people just -- it's just not worth it. it is such a dangerous job. >> given example. what did you have to do on a nine dollar per hour wage? what was the scariest thing that happened? >> we work 12 hour shifts, sometimes those turned into 14, 16 hour shifts, because there weren't enough people to work, or we come in extra days.

my job was basically to work in a unit and deal with the 350 prisoners. let them out to eat, let them back in, lock them up. when they need something, they call for me, and i have to tell whoever it is, and we were supposed to count them multiple times per day. we're also supposed to, every half hour, go through these dorms and check on people. but that didn't happen, nobody did that. >> you mean they didn't follow through? >> no, no. they are making nine dollars per hour, they won't get fired unless they do something really egregious. the attitude is like, there's no incentive to do this work. bother? and they will write it down in a book that it was done. it will look at the book, the books are in order, so it's just

perpetuated. >> alicia, is what shane bauer's describing a unique experience? or do you think it's fairly representative of what happens in private prisons? >> it is hard to say. unfortunately i didn't have the experience shane had. it's hard to say. i would guess it is probably quite typical. when we wrote about christen press -- about prison transport companies, people are severely underpaid, taking these jobs out of desperation, pushed to their limits, and a lot of bad things happen. youou report more and more, have the sympathy for everybody involved, the people working in the people being held in custody. >> talk about prison transportation. what is it and why is it privatized, and why is that so appealing to states?

>> so let's say you live in florida, and you fell behind on your child support in ohio, for example, and the district attorney wants to bring you back to face a charge on that. to get you all the way and go back would be quite a large venture that somebody who works for the law enforcement would have to do, so instead they contract it out to a private company that does it for a very low rate. the way it works, the companies drive all around the country,'s exact all across, picking up people. sometimes they drive for weeks on end and nobody gets out of the van except to go to the bathroom the entire time. that leads to not surprisingly really, really horrible things happening to people. medical crises, sexual assault, multiple deaths. the guards are driving, they hardly ever get to stop. they are very tired. we documented over 50 crashes, 12 of them where people died.

we saw that there were many times women housed right next to men, even though under federal regulations they are supposed to be separate. so many escapes. we found at least 60 escapes since 2000, 18 went on to commit new crimes, so if you don't feel sympathy for the people in the van, maybe would concern you that people are getting out and committing new crimes once they escape the van. it was a big undertaking to figure this all out, because unlike private prisons which you can see and know exist, these drive across state lines, which makes it really hard to find, to it the's liable -- is company, the pickup? like shane was saying, that people -- the government agencies that hire these people, they are not saying that we want any sort of standard about how these people are brought back to our custody. they hire the cheapest company

and the company doesn't the cheapest way possible, and nobody is at fault for it. so yeah, it' similars in a lot of ways. >> can you describe one of these suspicious deaths on the transport vehicle? >> yeah. one of the people, stephen galec, a father of three, he owned a home remodeling business. he succumbed to an opiate addiction for some time, and he fell behind on child support payments, and they locked him up. that's the kind of person who might end up on the van. he was -- >> he was arrested for not paying child support. >> that's right. he died under mysterious circumstances in the sense that there are multiple inmates on the van who say he died from a beating from the two guards driving the van, and others being held. by the medical examiner came back with inconclusive autopsy, and they are currently -- i

believe the litigation is ongoing. he was one of our main stories because we had so much detail about what had happened, we could figure out the entire route and see how they crisscrossed all over. he had been begging for help for quite a long time before he actually died. >> there were multiple people you wrote about who would say they were experiencing stomach pain, some kind of medical issue, that the people who are driving the vans thought they were faking it. >> sometimes, or there was one woman, denise isaacs, a woman in her 40's, a mother who had been complaining for a long time was --aving -- she basically a lot of people are on medication and then their medication stops. it is not uncommon people start having a lot of medical distress while they are on the van. so yeah, that is the kind of thing where, in that case, the

guards actually wanted to bring her to the hospital. under their company policy, they had to call and ask for permission. the company said no. so they kept driving. i did this story with my coworker -- it took us eight months, two full-time reporters, to figure this out. research it can take to figure out this information, and these two guards, we finally found them, they were really upset that this had happened, that they didn't want it to happen. you could say they should have gone to a hospital anyway and that would have been a valid argument, but we talked to over 50 people that work for these companies, it is people in desperate situations, taking a job that pays eight dollars or nine dollars per hour to drive for two weeks on end. no one would want to do that. >> and they are discouraged --

there's been some reform. >> supposedly. the biggest obstacle is that they have to find a jail to bring all the people on the van to, and they are not going to pay the jail. they need to jail to volunteer to take all the people, which is hard to come by. >> what kind of training to the drivers receive? >> they said they beefed up their training, so maybe they have, but at the time we were hearing from people who are saying that they had anywhere from two days to two weeks. >> when you describe your training as a private prison guard, you wrote about being tear gassed. can you describe your training and why you were tear gassed? >> yeah. the tear gassing thing was one of the more reasonable things, because -- the idea is that if tear gas is used, they want you to know what it's like so you

don't freak out the first time you experience it. >> what was it like? >> it's awful, it feels like you are going to die. but a lot of the training was like watching videotapes. we had maybe two days of physical self-defense training, but there were a lot of days that we sat there and there were no extractors, we just -- no instructors. it counts as a day. so we had four weeks. most days there would be two hours, the rest of the time we would sit around. >> did you feel equipped -- >> no, no, no. everybody says -- once you start the job, you learn to actually do it. sometimes a new guard will come in and try to follow the rules, and you just don't have enough people.

you literally can do the things you're supposed to do. you have to make do, which often means you end up having to use prisoners to supplement. there was one prisoner we would couldt of his dorm so he go to the dorms and see what other prisoners need. he would get kicked back from them, and it made our lives easier. >> just because you were so shortstaffed. >> right. and this was something, i was just following what the other guards were doing. i would also mention the medical stuff. this really similar issue in the private prisons, because medical costs a lot of money. inmate has a serious condition that the infirmary can take care of, they have to send them out. by the contract, at this present, the company had to pay the cost. they were very reluctant to do

that, to send prisoners out. it was a huge cost. they are making $30 per day per inmate. whohere was one man i met had gangrene, and he was making repeated complaints, going into the infirmary over and over. they were telling him that he was lying and giving him motrin and sending him back. it wasn't until he couldn't sleep anymore -- sitting upright in the chair, and the other inmate got mad and said they would beat him up if he didn't go to sleep. there was a conflict that erupted, and from that he got taken to the hospital. i met him, and he had no fingers her legs. these stories -- there are so many. i met so many people in those situations.

people who had heart failure that would go to the infirmary and get put back in the dorm. about howo wrote corrections officers or guards experience much higher rates of job-related stress. >> yeah. >> jeannie woodford, what effect does that have on a guard? how does a high stress position like that, being so understaffed the way he is describing, what effect does that have on the treatment of prisoners? >> well, you were describing your academy. i started in 1978, when there weren't many standards and my academy was nine days long. we have come a long way since that. it is now 16 weeks, and there are staffing standards, and there has to be a good staffing ratio that is approved through union negotiations, and all those things, which have really brought down the violence level within our prisons. that is what you need.

if you don't have enough staff,. everybody is scared inmates are scared, the staff is scared, everybody overreacts. it is like you are hypervigilant, up here all day long, and when you are home, your relationships with your family, your children your neighbors, -- they become destroyed over time. that is why correctional officers have the highest suicide rate of any occupation, highest divorce rate highest lots of things. there was a study i read not long ago that officers have a ptsdigher stress rate of than people in the military, and that is some being in the kinds of situations you mentioned, where as he talks about, are not only in private prisons but some state prisons in some states. places like california are different because they have such high standards for staffing and medical care thanks to the courts and the courts have been in every aspect of california

prisons and that is what made them evil. -- then evolve. do you feel like there is a direct link? >> absolutely. i experienced that myself. i was there for months, i was going in as a journalist, i had a reason i was there, and i decided i would try to be a nice guard, as much as i could. but that didn't last very long, honestly. i felt like i just got worn down really fast. i started having a much shorter temper. i would find myself shouting at people sometimes unintentionally. everybody does, everybody on that job loses it at different times. i had this experience where i

auld try to be easy-going, couple people took advantage of me and i realized i have to hold the line. then you had conflicts, and you can manage everything, it is so stressful that it is hard not to see yourself surrounded by these people as out to get you, even when they are just wanting to get what they need and make it. but you can't give it to them, and you just get worn down. >> you save being a guard have a psychological effect. >> absolutely. did you ever -- being in that environment -- you are in prison for a time. did you ever find that trauma coming back on you as a guard? >> i mean -- it is hard to answer because i'm just me. i found out that i sell into the

experience as a guard, it was so intense, i was so present that i wasn't necessarily thinking about my experience before. --id find myself sometimes one example that comes to mind, --n i was in prison, i would my friend josh and i would take extra food. when they passed it out we would get extra trays and eat them. one guard one day did not want to see that, and he really went off. whenmost beat me, and then i was a guard, the prison was locked down, which it often was, because of a violent incident, or because there weren't enough guards. so with the present was locked down, you had to bring food to the unit, they can't go to the cafeteria. i was passing out food tray and one guy took an extra tray, and i was on top of him, and it hit me. like, whoa.

>> and when you are with inmates like that constantly, because you don't have enough staff, that just intensifies the anger they have towards the staff. they are not thinking it's the corporations fall, they think it is your fault. they are so dependent on you for everything. >> i feel like they did think it was a corporation's fault. we talked about it a lot. i saw them talking about it with other guards a lot. they say we know this isn't your fault. liket the same time, it's -- the way i think of it is like soldiers that are in a war, they don't believe in it, but they are still there, they still have to fight each other, even if they recognize that maybe those people on the other side aren't their enemy. what is thentos, oversight like of private entities like prison transportation -- is that the name of the company? >> prison transportation

companies, extradition companies. >> the one you specifically investigated was pts. >> prison transportation services, yes. that is the largest prison transportation company specializing in extradition. >> what is the oversight like of these corporations? >> zero. there was supposed to the oversight, there was a law passed in 2000 -- it is pretty vague, but it was meant to give the federal government some authority to prosecute particular types of mistreatment. but mostly, to prevent escapes. it was passed after somebody escaped from a private prison van in north dakota. he murdered a young girl and was found in texas living with a new girlfriend with young children. that made people upset, the law passed in 2000. it had been enforced one time in the force of six -- in the course of 16 years. since our story, it was brought

up with ben attorney general loretta lynch, who was asked about it by a florida congressman what they were going to do after the story came out. they promised to investigate, and good news and bad news -- great, they will investigate. that this march i got a phone call from a woman that had been on a van rant by a subsidiary of prison transportation services, and she told me she watched a man die on the van last week, and that her and everybody -- excuse me, it was a bus. 26 passengers had taken a burger king wrapper and passed it around to each other and wrote down their name and contact information so they could find each other when they were all off this vehicle. they couldn't believe what they were seeing. they did this before the guy died on the bus. this was something that -- they were able to get us a list and

we were able to call every single person who verified it was real. it's tragic, because it was supposed to be something that was being looked into, and obviously it just went right back to the way they have been operating. people have been on that bus for two weeks, and we verified that. it's absolutely true, they are not just saying it. but we do know some people have been arrested really recently, actually, by the department of justice, the criminal section. it does appear they are being looked at. they are not being prosecuted under the law, more for criminal reasons, the most recent being -- both were for sexually assaulting a female that was on the vehicle. >> do you know if these services are increasingly being used to shuttle immigrants to detention centers? >> we did look into that. good thing is that those types of transports are quite different, because they are usually from one facility to the other. they are more direct.

whereas the problem with this is that it is such a crisscross -- they get another car to drive to georgia, now they are back in tennessee. it is different whereas immigration transports are done sometimes privately, because so many immigrants are held in private detention facilities, they have their own transfer arms. >> just because it is so -- >> because there are so many people to move, and it's another thing they can charge for. >> we are hearing that we are going to see a lot more demand from private prison companies for immigration detention because of the crackdowns in the trump administration. do you haveford, any sense of where we are in that ramp up? >> i really don't. i don't have the current numbers. i know there are projections that the number of detainees

that will be held in private prisons will double over the next few years. but i don't know if this actually -- if it is already occurring. do you? >> i'm not sure. also -- this isn't starting now. get started under obama. it went up through his presidency. i don't know the numbers, but that has been the frontier of these companies for a while, immigrant detention. expansion,t a lot of but there is a lot in detention. >> jeannie woodford, during this conversation you have been talking about how california has much better policies, that the courts have stepped in, it has improved have a situation is, especially after intense overcrowding, but yet doesn't california's recidivism rate

remains stubbornly high, still in the mid-60's? the return to prison rate is like 65%. >> it is actually -- it was over 65% when we added rehabilitation back and started expanding rehabilitation last year it finally started coming down. >> you attribute that to programming and rehabilitative services? >> absolutely. it took us almost 40 years to get to where we were with the prison problems, and it is going to take a long time to unwind that. it really is about not only what happens at the state level, but also at the local level. you are probably all familiar with realignment, where inmates who are convicted of nonserious, nonviolent, nonsex offenders are kept at the local level. that's a big chunk of people.they are still considered state

e prisoners but they are held locally. many are realizing that they have to change of they do at the local level to provide rehabilitative programs. san francisco is doing a really good job, and some other counties as well, but it will take a while for us to see a dramatic change in recidivism. i think it is just good news we are starting to see it come down. >> do you think that recidivism could be improved, shane bauer, if private prison companies were incentivized to lower the rate of recidivism, meeting that they could get payments for inmates that they held that don't return to the prison within a two to three-year period, or something like that? aren't there things like that being tried? >> not that i know of. there was a prison simulation that came out a while ago that was doing that. they were paying the company extra for people to do well when

they get out. the thing is, when we talk about prisons, prisons are the end of the line of a long chain. the reason people are ending up there, the programming issue also, is beyond the prison. these are state issues. the programming in public prisons isn't a whole lot better. it didn't seem better than the ones in the private prisons in louisiana, but it is just so minimal. the prison i was in, they were giving classes like kg or rage, rage,here was -- cage your and they were giving ged classes. i know they have gone way back since the 1970's. they had this time where a lot

of rehabilitative programs were getting cut and were building these prisons for long-term solitary confinement. like a switch of withach in how it deals the prison population. >> alicia, do you know of any innovative ways to incentivize private prison companies to improve outcomes? >> i have never heard of any, but it would be great if they tried it. it seems obvious. you are a government agency, you are contracting out something for the public, you are using taxpayer money to pay for it, then you set up nothing within your contract to ensure basic human dignity. even with the prison transport companies, there was even something like -- if you bring our prisoners, you have to make sure their medical needs are met. is the most basic thing, all they require is you be brought alive at some point.

-- i don't think these kinds of incentives will happen, because the margin of savings that leads to profit is relatively small, and as soon as yo start doing this you aren'tu saving money anymore. -- thesystem is based bottom line is the most important thing, for any company. if they aren't making money, than they aren't going to exist. >> why did you want to be a prison guard? why did you want to do that story? [laughter] >> what was the -- >> first of all, it's very hard as a reporter to get access to prisons, period. it has gotten harder and harder over the years and decades. i have been in some california prisons, but even in california it will be easier, but still you

have two or three hours, and that's it. you can't interview particular inmates, and there are a lot of walls. with private prisons it is even more difficult. these are companies. they don't have a lot of public -- the public access laws don't apply, so giving records is really hard, getting information is difficult. these companies have existed for 30 years, and we haven't had a good look inside of them. that was the only way that i could think of to do that, to see what life was like in these prisons. >> do you think a for-profit prison, that private prisons, have a role in our criminal justice system, that they should be there, that they have a beneficial role to play? >> no. [laughter]

mean, again, the only -- there's nothing they are adding other than cost savings. that is the issue. >> and that is questionable. >> and it's questionable. but behind this question is, really the issue is the size of our prison population. private prisons are a symptom, because it is so vague -- it's the largest in the world by far. inflated, there are going to be ways -- states will try to save money because it is so expensive. speak, i justyou want to remind the audience that in five minutes we will be taking questions from you, so please be thinking of your questions. there's a microphone in the back right corner of the room, my

left. please feel free to line up if you have questions. >> i was just going to say, you talked about recidivism. it is so much for complicated than that. you have to look at the entire system to address recidivism. it starts with a person's first arrest. it starts with what happens when they are on probation. it is every aspect -- who gets out on bail, who doesn't. is your criminal justice system fair, is it not fair. who are you arresting, who are you not arresting. it is part of a whole. you can't just take one piece of it and say, we've contract with you to bring down recidivism. you have to work with the entire system and make it fit together in a way where everybody's goal is public safety, and when you are looking at public safety, you have to be concerned about everybody involved in that system, the inmates, your policy, that families, the victims. thatthat holistic approach

will really bring down recidivism and get us to a sensible criminal justice policy. >> i have the same question for you that i have for shane bauer. do you think that a for-profit correctional facility can play a beneficial role in our criminal justice system? >> i really don't. having been a public servant, i really believe in public service, and a really believe that when you are a public servant, it is really your goal to try to be judicious with taxpayer money, to have clear missions, to really seek policies that need that mission. if your mission is profit, i don't know how that fits in to a good public policy and a system that seeks to benefit all taxpayers and everybody within the state and other states. >> alicia sent us, where do you stand? >> it is unlikely they add anything at all, but i also want

to say that i don't necessarily think private prisons are worse than public prisons. it is just worth keeping in mind. the profit motive is gross to many of us, it is so offputting that it is how we are running the system. but at the same time, some of the worst stories i've ever heard, no one was making a profit at all. removing the prophet is not going to fix our problems all. >> one problem is reducing the prison population. >> is caring about people. >> i would agree, i absolutely agree, there have been horrific stories in california prisons and prisons around the country. i think the difference is, in a public system, every time you have it, things change, the courts get involved, policy changes, staffing levels, staffing training, the tools that people utilized, better medical care, better psychiatric care. all of that happens in the public system as it defaults.

system, you have companies that go bankrupt and come back with a new name, which we have seen. i don't see how you make that any better, because their motive is profit. >> but also the public system builds super max prisons, builds things to put people in cells for 30 years. drugs, created a war on mandatory minimums, lots of things that inflated our prison population significantly, particularly in the 1980's, when we hear about these private prisons becoming much more appealing. but you are writing a book about private prisons, and you are finding that this model has gone back even before the 1980's. >> yet. we have had for-profit prisons throughout american history. different periods of times, from the first prison in the country was for profit in philadelphia.

the first penitentiaries were essentially factories where they are making textiles for companies. into theout 40 years time we start building penitentiaries that in the south they were entirely run by companies, entirely privatized. then after the civil war, companies were using prisoners as labor, working cotton fields, working in mines. this went into the early 20th century. than the states took over, and the states are still trying to make a profit from these. sometimes it is private, sometimes it is the state, but there has been a profit aspect through the whole system, up until very recently, when the private prisons were created. >> let me open it up to the audience. as always, keep your questions

short, and with question marks. be brief so we can get to as many people as possible. i see some of the microphone, what is your question? >> do you think there is a connection in the modern prison system, both private and public, to the belief that it has become our modern system of slavery? >> who wants to take that? [laughter] mean -- the thing i would -- imdb into history now, -- i am deep into history now, and there is a line. we had slavery, and during slavery, prisons were basically subsidizing the slavery system by making clothes for slaves, cheaper than the north could make them. it was very much tied into the system. slaveowners were learning from the prison system for a while.

then we had prisoners doing what slaves used to do for a very long time. i am talking up to the 1970's, there were prisoners picking cotton in fields, when the rest of the company -- and it's not just the profit issue. before the civil war, most prisoners were white. immediately after, most were black, and they have been ever since. it has been a method of dealing with the huge gap of wealth in the country. 's social control, in some ways, you can't separate it. it is not the same, but it is part of the same trajectory. >> thanks for the question. next question? feel free to introduce yourself, if that's ok. >> hi, i'm eric. ok.

is there any relationship between private prisons, the internal prison economy, and the prominence of gangs within prisons? >> i'm confused with the question. is there a tie between private prisons and gangs within prisons? so the prison i was in was -- louisiana is strange because there aren't prison gangs like most of the country, and they are not racially segregated, which is strange coming from california. you have this idea of the deep south being a place that is really racist, but in california prisons are extremely segregated. but there were guards from other prisons filling in, saying where they were, and one of the guards

said he liked his prison better because the gangs were really strong there, and in louisiana it was very chaotic. there weren't people calling the shots within the prison population, telling people what to do. he said at my facility, if somebody doesn't make their bed, they get stabbed. if they mouth off to an officer, they get stabbed. it maintains order. i heard this from several people, lawsuits about this. it kind of comes back to the issue of the understaffing, stuff like that. although at the same time, in those prisons, guards get killed sometimes. hits is more concentrated directed by gangs. >> hi, and kimberly. either volunteer on the board, so thank you for being here tonight. even more so, thank you for doing what you do, putting yourself in peril to do so for the good of the public.

eye was healthy to could talk a little bit about risk and reward in terms of the backlash that you received from the articles he wrote, and perhaps ms. woodford could comment also on how it feels to be on the receiving end of seeing what happens in someone else's prison. >> i would say that, interestingly, a lot of the times when i write stories, there is more of a backlash, but the prison transport authority, even the employees of the company, likes the story. they were like, thank you so much for getting the story out there. the only people that didn't like it were the people that owned the company. silence,ash was just like they just didn't talk to us, and didn't invite us to see the changes we later realized weren't real. nice,as actually really because a lot of the times you do get -- it's not always

horrible, just people being like, screw you are whatever. but that one, a lot of people thanked us. that was an interesting reaction, because a lot of times when you write about prisons, you write about guards. but in this one, we did try to make sure to point out the difficulty they were facing. a really appreciated that. >> when you advocate for the interest of prisoners, do you hear from victims of crimes sometimes who feel th the trade, maybe -- feel betrayed, maybe, that you are advocating for their needs? >> i would never say i am advocating for them in this sense -- >> you hear from them in any way? >> that is definitely happened, where people are like, you ruined my life, you ruined my husband's life by writing about this particular thing. people say that to you, and i

find the best reaction is, i try to have a phone conversation with someone when i have an email like that, because emailing will not work. we will get nowhere with that. i usually will try to hear them out, because i want to hear what people say, i really want to hear their criticism, because i want to think about it next time. it is a sensitive subject matter. you want to be aware of everyone you are impacting because you were impacting a lot of people. mike, the executive director of a nonprofit called the public trust alliance. models forat theoving the situation, public trust doctrine has been part of our law since before statehood, and most of my work is with the public utilities commission and investing your own utilities, which are doing

some amazingly dumb things with respect to climate change. prison is an inherently public spare -- fair like providing resources for water and drinking. to use the public trust doctrine as guideposts for moving anyard, have you heard of citation of that particular strand of law in our law which is based on public interest? its application and corrections. >> no. i'm not sure that i understand the question. just how toerms of function in public interest like

that is something that is a objectives.stated how to make these institutions -- i am sorry. you haven't seen any of that. >> that is somewhat unrelated. this is ated in that .dea of how profit is i'm here with the marshall project. the board of the cca. at a shareholder meeting. he was there. he stayed $150,000 per year to sit on the board. in the pamphlet they pass out it increasing diversity

of the board. i try to ask him why he does it and people never answer me. he gets a lot of money to do it. defines the code purpose of prisons. for a long time the purpose was punishments. or or five years ago, 2006, we added rehabilitation into the department of corrections. set thehat back end department towards the mission that would improve public safety by providing rehabilitative services to inmates. is that getting to what your point was? >> some things are too important publicly to treat as private public. -- private property. >> what you're saying is the closest you seen is this.

that is what you're saying. we have time for three more questions. prisons were's privately owned for a while. -- the governor took the keys back. they were held in by the state .ntil recently there were 6000 outside california and some inside. --you think that the rise there are more people currently held in private prisons in , held out of state. it that going to be a trend that continues? more power as time goes on? >> no i don't think that will happen in california at all. we have had a cap on private prisons in state of 4500 for a long, long time. all efforts to increase that have never gone anywhere.

the only reason california is having the out-of-state is because of the cap on the number of inmates that can be held within our prison system. doingate has been everything they can to eliminate those out-of-state beds because they are expensive and in addition to that you are sending inmates away from family members. private heads out-of-state will come to an end . >> high. one question i had while i was back here with my friends in my youth. of -- that it's a lots all my youth we was sitting in the back all listening and i was especially. one thing i was going to ask is what more can we do in our communities to help this keep going and progress? for the question.

a similar question i was going to ask. we are on the cusp of exponential growth in this industry, what should be will -- what should be be watching for, what can we do? >> you have to be involved at the local level in terms of what happens with your criminal justice system. the state gave every county a lot of money to bring rehabilitative programs to individuals who are involved in the criminal justice system as a result of realignment. some counties use that money for things other than programming. you have to pay attention to what you are countries are doing, where they are spending their money, making sure they are putting it into drug treatment, mental health treatment, providing homes and medical care and the things we know work to bring down keep people from

being involved in the criminal justice system. it is really important. fighting against right reasons is really an important issue as well. lot aboutng we talk a is one of the things difficult is most people have never been inside one. if there was some way in some future scenario that being in our society meant you had to know what it felt like him or what it looks like to be inside a prison, it will be so enlightening because it is out of sight out of mind. you think that is never going to affect me, anybody i love you even if you believe that and walk through a facility and see itt it is like an eel what is like in there i don't think you can walk away at the same. person, spreading awareness as much as you can.

the biggest obstacle is that people don't know and they don't care and making people care, however you can, is a really powerful thing. >> i run into people all the time that have been in that prison because there doors are open quite a bit. anybody been inside san quentin? isn't that amazing? they let people in. >> time for one final question. >> we have a combo statement in question. you don't need to know my name honestly, but my comment -- you can left. i don't not how you guys go to sleep at night knowing you do that it do and saying is enlightening to go to prison and to have to realize and even if you don't have this mentality yourself -- to tell this mentality that it may not happen

as it happens to my family. to say it is enlightening and it won't happen to you and you don't have to worry about it and you can be the advocate for them is kind of low for you guys. i don't understand how you are doing this right now. that is my comments. that -- weion on have had several states including california and oregon where i just came from that have legalized recreational marijuana. on the federal end of that you toe jeff sessions who wants equate marijuana and heroin. do -- is do you anticipate a blessing of heads -- butting states inn certain

incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders. >> if you want to be able to respond to the previous statement as well i think it is a strong statement and worth a response if you have one. i certainly don't mean it's to be hurtful. i mean people should care but i know from the work i do that a lot of equal don't you i believe that people saw it and experience that that it would be moving to them. not everybody has the experience of having a loved one and are fortunate to not rants, to know what it is like to have a loved one incarcerated. i wish people could understand what that would be like and that is what a mean by that. i it is interpreted that way cannot do anything about it but that would be my response. are trying to solve the problem and help the system get better.

[indiscernible] >> i think they should be able to respond. that was the opportunity that they were being given and if you want more of a conversation about it please do so as soon as we are -- we are very close to concluding this conversation. theref the reason that are segments of our study had byt have not been touched our criminal justice system in part because those who are in it are not reflective of our population as a whole. they are disproportionately black, brown, populations that are much smaller proportions in ourat they are population as our prison populations. >> i don't know any family that has not been impacted by incarceration at the local level or state level including my own.

i also think it is so important to go inside prisons to humanize people in there. people think that inmates are what you see on tv and it is just not so. they are people and they have kids and families and we need to care about what happens to them. i am sothat is why about making change to public policy. we now know that it is not the length of the prison sentence that makes us safer it is what we do with people, the treatment we provide for them that makes us safer. that is why i do what i do. toafter this as well for you be able to ask her questions because i am sorry for the person who asked the lots question we will not be able to get to it in this panel. i encourage you to ask it again. forum askingse in

each speaker what is your 60 seconds idea to make the world a better place. cracks i don't have an easy innovation -- >> i don't have an easy innovation. ,hen we look back on this time i think that mass incarceration is going to define this time. we have 2.3 million people behind bars, more than any country in the world. doing that took a lot of things. changing the power of prosecutors, drug laws, how much we punish violent criminals because most of the people in prison are therefore violent crimes, 85%.

, racisme so many things in society. system is all of that stuff mashed up. that is the end. it symbolizes our bigger social problems. >> it is expanding data driven decision making. much more public policy comes from emotion and politicians trying to win elections. i really think that it is about expanding decision-making and every law, every statute that has passed should have the data bind it to say what we are doing. we need to know why we are doing what we are doing. [applause] but ifs pie in the sky there is any way to really loosen the laws around the records of prisons, one of the

most illegal things is that it is so hard to figure out what is actually going on because the records are kept in a way which is a security threat for anybody to know anything. a blanket denial. transparency is a really important thing that is needed. more cameras, public access to what that footage shows. when people know they are being watched, people behave differently and that has been proven over and over. shine a light on those places that operate in full darkness. [applause] >> shane bauer, thanks all of you for coming .

more about the criminal justice system and proposed changes today. virginia governor teri mccullough will be among the features. -- speakers. at :00 eastern on c-span. actionday, the national network marks the march for justice for the 1963 march on washington. al sharpton and other religious leaders marching from the martin luther king jr. memorial to the justice department. that gets underway at 12:30 p.m. eastern here on c-span.

>> voices from the road at the national conference of state legislatures summit in boston asking attendees what is the most important issue to your state? >> one of the biggest issues that is facing the great state of maryland is the issue, a problem, of juvenile justice. over 50 of our youth that are incarcerated for life without the possibility of parole. i'm going to be working very with thegently legislature to put in place a bill that will allow these juveniles to have a hearing. that is one of the biggest issues that we have seen, facing us in the great state of maryland. the second has to do with opiates. opiates in the state of maryland is killing our young people, our old people, it has no respect for age, greed, faith

--ehavior, mental illness all these things are important but opiates is the leading cause of death in the state of maryland. we are trying to do whatever we possibly can to eliminate this problem. that is one of the issues that we are going to be looking at as we move into the legislative session. the most important issues where facing in new york israel safety. over 5300 rail crossings in new we have seen fatalities increase while nationally numbers have increased. -- decreased. requiren would inventory so we can prioritize and know which ones are the most deadly, which need a simple amount of work. which ones need to be eliminated altogether. when we look at the 5300

altogether it is hard to tackle but by focusing in and making sure we can affect -- add new technology and illuminating the most deadly we can increase safety for everyone. congress has allocated money, now we need to put our plan and faith to access funding to make our motorists safer altogether. >> economic developers. for parents to provide income and resources to get a good education and allow do wonder things for their entire lifetime. job growth and economic >>velopment drastically need help. we don't have a budget. session andack in

drastically without a budget. the executive order does not give him the power to prop on -- funded schools, increase funding for higher ed, help state employees, and we need this budget now. as soon as possible. >> i'm here to make a statement about what we need from leaders in washington, d.c.. what we are looking at in ohio, we need to take care of infrastructure. that is a primary issue from across the united states. we need washington to focus in on infrastructure. our roads are crumbling. start focusing on that issue.