or to. the most important thing. is to talk from your heart if you have more than one child give a like an overall message but then do an individual one to each child throw them a kiss or talk to them about what you do daily the rest should be just you if you've written a poor we've had people pray we've had people saying one guy showed his little boy how to shoot baskets be creative. these are gifts to your children. the families are punished right along with. they have found people don't think so but the collateral consequences of somebody is incarceration affects not just the whole family but it affects the whole community and affects you as an individual or the

you know whether or not and whether you know that person or not that's incarcerated . get to inform. you should care. i have a background of that again as a producer and i thought there's got to be something i can do so why not combine my career and my experience with the present system and come up with something for these kids. and a parent in that camera. and if they can look at them and say. you know this isn't your fault you did nothing wrong it means a lot and for many of these men and women it's the first time they've really taken responsibility which is huge and that's a first step in recovery if any. any time is to take responsibility for. this little. episode of everybody that. i was going to go to.

i'm going to do the best they can to stay out of this please. misguided olav i'm glad to have been away from. this once you guys in good numbers can we be with. the. next chapter. from one thousand twenty to one thousand nine hundred seventy this whole half century of american history the rate of incarceration was roughly level about one hundred ten per one hundred thousand. and this is a broad span of our history this is the ruling twenty's and prohibition the depression and all the social change the world war two the post-war economic boom

the the the fifty's the explosion of suburbia the sixty's and all the social turbulence through this whole period the rate of incarceration is roughly level in the united states at about one hundred ten per one hundred times and this reflects you know the policies of police departments and prosecutors and judges operating all over the country in local and state level and then in the one nine hundred seventy distorts changes so that by now the rate of incarceration issue why just over seven hundred one hundred three requests are issue for african-americans is over four thousand four hundred and so you have to wonder how does she why did this half century of stability get up ended with this dramatic increase of incarceration in spades america's public enemy number one in the united

states is drug abuse once the federal government decided that we're going to have war on drugs they were able to then take a lot of money. the federal budget then send it out to states alex i realize the need for money to deal with this problem i am glad that in this administration we have increased the amount of money for handling the problem of dangerous drugs seven it will be six hundred million dollars this year more money will be needed to do it virtually everybody saw in the drug war was the number one issue and so you had politicians in both parties and you know district attorneys and elected sheriff everybody wanted to get in to drug cases and get aggressive about new laws to punish the new agents to arrest the new prosecutors to convict them and new prisons to hold them. we moved the train when i was very young when we moved here

we moved you know to malone's we used to always roll up and down the hallways of course it was the projects so some time we will sneak up on the roof which was the top floor twelfth floor and you know look out and of course i was very scared as a young child but you know when you live in the projects it's always so much stuff that you can get into my brother was tragically killed when he was ran over by a truck and i remember pacifically going to the corner with a habanera and seeing all the blood because they left all the blood still in the street the traumatic experience of losing my only brother and that truck eggs and i know it had done something to me you know drugs from our skate that time was hard all the way or because my son was doing drugs my nephews was too much drugs my niece was doing drugs my sisters with doing drugs it was like an epidemic. of drug abuse. and i cannot explain. i cannot explain my

feelings because i'd at that time i didn't know how i felt you know i was sad because i felt like they were different in their lives but there was nothing i could do about it the change their lifestyle. how was it. after my brother passed away i kind of withdrew from a lot of things i didn't talk as much i was very quiet on probably as early as my teenage years. twelve thirteen years old you know i started sneaking a drink in a little bit here and there started smoking marijuana at a very young age i started all selling drugs in you know he came right along with. the family you tend to trust family when i first saw him and then with

a. in the hallway and i used to be a hall before monitor and i was stationed right in front of his locker so when i knew that he was coming to his locker i would put my hands up and like black youth wait. so he would have to say excuse me something in that we started talking we got to know each other you know at the home many times in and out over at our house. you know my home. wasn't really a home compared to her house margaret grew up with her parents before the parents all the nice decent house great mother great father. something that i didn't have and i started you know just being around her a lot and being around family a lot and next thing you know you know it's pretty much you know once we started going to get i was pretty was there were another house and they were two years old i was pretty much stay in there because my mom was on drugs she. knew i was there

she really didn't have a problem with it but a kindness started you know live in this day with morgan at a very young age. by the time i was sixteen seventeen i was fully engulfed in the drug game and it is only was so big it was only seven point five square miles so a lot of rumors a stylus britain along to the train detectives back then they had to take to that one high school and they kind of got to know me very well and i guess they relayed that information to the trip narcotics and they started watching me and followed me around the stuff like that then i remember the first time that they that they raided my house i wasn't there but my mother was there and i was i think i just turned seventeen. they locked her up and i got a phone call saying you know your mother was locked up and they want you to turn yourself in. so i visually i turned myself in a seventeen a let my mother go and i first time you ever going to joe i went to you found because i was. eighteen i was always the old you when we were it still in high

school and we missed the prom. when i got out i remember the detective telling me that soon as i turned eighteen and it was going to come back. and if i didn't straight up my life that first spiritual being one compared to the other experiences in jail because of that i would be over eighteen and i would be going into a dull facility. most historians look at the origin of the war on drugs as something of president nixon with his speeches and his creation of of the d.n.a. and other agencies in the one nine hundred seventy s. but the reward drugs as we understand it with food nor enormous case loads and and in and filled up prison population is really a feature of the one nine hundred eighty s. under president reagan drugs are menacing our society they're threatening our values and undercutting our institutions they're killing our children under reagan

there was a tremendous increase in federal spending for anti drug activity cabinet level efforts and congress creating bre powerful new laws on day two of a new campaign against drugs the president backed up a tough talk with action for getting tough on drugs and we mean business it's almost like overnight we had discrete idea what we go after the users. and that's what we did we started going after to users in a prison population sore because obviously they're far more use of center operations major operations and. we started treating sick people people who were addicted to drugs one member a member talking to my grandmother and having a conversation with her about my wife and how far i had fallen she said to me you know jason will always pray for you and i'm going to pray that you change your life around. here one of the things that she said that stuck with me was that you know

god is going to far in your darkest hour and only there when you realize who you truly your and i heard her but i really didn't hear her. and i left her house that they skip and then it went right back out into the streets. i remember going to new york on the cob coming back from new york coming down route one coming through union county we had drugs in the car and we had a gun in a car. and i remember being stopped at a light and get now switching drivers i got around to the passenger side and she took the driver's seat and not knowing that it was a cop car right behind us so once again i didn't want to go to court i was going to try i told my laura that you know we just have to try to get all the charges pushed together give me one senses because i do my time and hopefully straight not my life but i remember pacifically the judge sitting just telling me that element to tom loser. and he said tracy you who convicted in one thousand nine hundred you can

begin again in one thousand nine hundred eighty he said come back before me for the third time in the third term is going to be a chore for you. than . how.

are you will be in the. last years does do you know that was what gave she does it with the people most of congress are not all what i mean. i mean was my mother. really a local she came in from a week in which he has you know he lives by if. you're in the home of the media. i'm with you more in the vein one was in the mud on the north and even when he was up in this bomb i was in the most will start to feel.

i had a great education a good job and a family that loved me. i never had to worry about how i would eat and where i would sleep. i'm facing christmas alone out on the streets of london. while you look. for you like your own. you know to snort it will still give out food for the hopeless. because you don't really feel like human you know. and then. the guy just came over to me saw me in.

the direction too would judge to sentence can be done to wish you to say judge here's a crime and for this crime you can impose a sentence anywhere in this range from probation to some term of years in prison and the other way is to say judge you must impose some minimum number of years or months of imprisonment and go up from there so a mandatory minimum this is a sentence where no matter how minor the role of the offender no matter how insignificant of violation of this crime it is a minimum term must be imposed mandatory minimum sentences are not new they've been on the books in this country for two hundred years and there are about one hundred ninety of them or something and if you look at them they read like the crime to

show or so you can see what the public was concerned about and then congress took that concern and translated it into law into let sensing legislation so piracy on the high seas in like seventeen ninety's a life without parole. robbing banks and crossing state lines in one nine hundred thirty four was you know to. in years of prison skyjacking in the seventy's for as ten or twenty years in prison and so you can see the you know what was the point the headlines were the headlines were translated into a mandatory sentence and so in the eighty's when drugs became a big deal and lots of concern about drugs it was in the top three of public concern comments reacted by creating new mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes what congress sent to president lee was five years me to the minimum five grams of crack cocaine grams like this we. can years minimum is fifty grand of crack cocaine that's like the weight of

a kid or these are tiny quantities it's all based on one factor your sense you know how what was a drug and how much of it did you have and that determines your sentence so culpability no longer really plays a major role in a person's a person sentence when the crime carries a mandatory minimum when president reagan signed the mandatory minimums in one thirty six the federal prison population was thirty six thousand. now it's well over two hundred pounds this is a growth that no one could have imagined mass incarceration in the u.s. is really unique in human history there is no democratic nation that's ever tried to have such a massive social experiment as we've done in incarceration and we've got more prisoners than any other country in the ruin of her by rape and numbers i mean i find it a bit disturbing that we have more prisoners from china and they have a billion more people and we do i don't think it gives people enough when they hear

that we have twenty five percent of the world's prison population and only five percent of the world's population in other words we are way over incarcerating compared to any other country in the world. had allowed. somebody is. a storage area mine and police found it and they came after me i ended up literally holding the bag. i knew nothing about the criminal justice system and here i was this middle class. career never even a parking ticket and it was quite a surprise when we went to cork and i had that kind of time marijuana. and i was charged with possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute money going to conspiracy to murder i received a total of fifty five year prison sentence the judge suspended all but six i was

fortunate enough. to make the first parole and i actually served in prison fourteen months. is the cards that we've put in with the messages and asked the families to respond so we've gotten some really good responses and this one was three fam up three members of the family viewed it . and we ask what were the ages of the children who saw it should just want to put six. she says extremely meaningful for the daughter of a mother who is incarcerated she loved it. we all did. and this one said what did the message mean to your family to know their family was ok and it's a huge part of these children who want to know that their families i mean their mom or dad so ok. there's. always been three years since either of you see.

mr jones looms going to grieve for sure is that you don't read. those i'm sure fall just very few of them. do you want to listen to trail with. me filled you to the fold has been me. role of the law of the sun these last three four years one of the last. known. swan to say the. very first. they said is me to one year administrative segregation and administrative segregation is twenty three hour long going to the locked up twenty three hours each day you come out for half hour shower and a half hour break i know a bit of olive person. at that time i was treated like one of the worst phone

persons in the world i remember going into the s.l.o. i believe was maybe if i buy a cell. i was dead or close i knew i was going to be there for the next year is just an experience that it is going to make your break you are going to come out a better person are you going to come out of worship person than you were before you went to. being in a hole is mirrors and i mean i wouldn't wish on anybody. but you locked up for twenty three hours i think you can do it. my words my grandmother just kept playing over and over again in my mind and those words was the guy i was going to farm in my darkest hour knowing that what i realize who are actually was and when i kept hearing that because sand i am at my door that i am at my lowest point. and. i think right there and i realized i had reached my lowest point to life and that the only on the way for me to go from here. another crime another

criminal in a country that already fed up with religious rights politicians focus on often a simple crackdown the reason the criminal justice system isn't working is that we're not sending enough people in jail and keeping there long enough the people are saying. general worried that they will to lock these rascals up and keep them there for a long time through the one nine hundred eighty s. there was a major shift in the congress and in state legislatures of doubt how long sentences should be the public was a long term by increasing rates of crime from the one nine hundred seventy s. and early eighty's and they wanted longer sentences they wanted cracking down and that's what happened across the board for all kinds of crimes not only the mandatory minimum drug sentences the effect of all those sensing laws was not just to increase the sentences that people were exposed to so the people were serving

longer time in prison than they did before it was also to take the discretion away from the sentencing discretion away from judges and juries and shifted over to prosecutors it didn't limit it discretion it just gave prosecutors. the power to determine what your sentence was going to be by making charging decisions and even by bargaining over what the facts of your case were. so it didn't mean that discretion it was eliminated from the system it just put the prosecutors in charge . amy was born in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight and she was very very shy but by the task that in high school people can sat it in or she played basketball she made good grades high school that we went to a seven hundred twelve grade and i was kind of the little tagalong sister and me and my brother were friends and i mean my sister were friends just kind of watch sure she was. always really friendly always really nice this is

a small town. everybody knows everybody should get in trouble we'd know about it. i had what i consider an ideal a child. at some point when i'm in college i mean guy that works for southwest times record. the newspaper there and fort smith arkansas and he asked me if i would be a subject for him to go out and take some modeling photos we went to like several locations and he instilled in me that i really ought to pursue a modeling career consider my mother says to me ralston live to dallas my gosh no you know. what she's thinking what's she going to do and so i think she's going to model so i created a little portfolio before i went to dallas that i could show to the modeling agencies fandy it was well read well traveled well educated graduated stanford law

school i had gone to princeton theology school so it was it was very appealing to be around somebody who i was frankly very impressed with and so fascinated with and eight months later we were getting married at the dallas arboretum and all of our family and friends were there and it was at that point seemed like a dream come true. there were red flags before we got married there were there were frankly there were red flags all along the way sandy has what i consider to be a dual personality and that this other character would emerge whenever i don't literally had to do something radical. the only remedy to remove him from my life was for me to leave dallas i had to leave dallas and i'd leave all my friends behind and completely. move to a different city. saying. that he wouldn't leave her i just

kept saying you know let's be friends let's be friends he wanted to be more so cute told me that he was going to europe and then i never heard anything for a while though word got back to me that he'd been arrested. i hadn't been in dallas in over a year. of the only thing i knew to do was to book a flight to dallas to see if i could go through the house listen to the answering machine and try to piece this thing together vengefully thing you're going to find out more information and while i was in the dallas house the phone rang and it was sandy's german legal counsel who had been assigned to the case in germany and at that time he. gave me very thin details but said that sandy had been arrested for manufacturing ecstasy and that he wanted to retain an attorney for him there in dallas it was a pretty interesting revelation but i did there was money in the safe that was in

the house in dallas and i took that money and i retained an attorney to go over and meet with any attorney. seven months after sandy has been arrested and i pull into the garage of my car as rushed by law enforcement people who are screaming and have a gun out and they're pointing at my face i'm being told you know you're in hot water we know that your husband was arrested we know you know we know you visited him in germany and they said we know you have information and all you have to do is just tell us what you know and i wasn't going to say anything because i'm literally watching these people destroying my mom this isn't somebody that i really want to confide in so i add it wasn't very long after that that my lawyer explained to me exactly what it is that my prosecutor wanted they wanted her to wear a wire. and try to employ

a other people people she didn't even know and. she would she refused to do it she said i don't know they speak on that i'm not going to do this and this prosecutor said you either. paraphrasing. cooperate or will ruin your life. seem wrong but old rules just don't. let me. get to shape our just can't stick to it and engagement because betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. the greek riots occupy wall street arab spring these are the beginnings.

of the protests across europe today it was all connected it's all based on the exact same concept of bankers printing too much money creating this wealth income gap and it's a delayed or deferred riot sure that their violence was baked into the cake and now leaders like black hole are getting their just desserts. when our mind when the content of our mind. changed there are fees to ration the level of the physiology that is at the level of the brain the brain as a form of plasticity can rewire itself and not just the brain but also the rest of the body respond to.

syria and israel accuse each other of cross border missile strikes damascus says three of its soldiers were injured off the warehouse was targeted. also the cell more than one point five million people signed a petition pursued the french government for failing to take action on climate change. fears grow that notorious must blackpool so that in civilian massacres in iraq is making a comeback so full page ad is published in its name warning that we are coming. just on the story through head over to where you don't come stay with us now though across to. what our.