talk to them about what you do daily the rest should be just you if you've written a porn we've had people pray we've had people saying one guy showed his little boy how to shoot a basket the creative. these are gifts to your children. the families of punished right along with. the have found people don't think so but the collateral consequences of somebodies incarceration affects not just that 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. to pay inform. you should care. i have a background in film and video 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 then

a parent in that camera they're looking at their child and if they can look at them and say you know this isn't your fault you did nothing wrong it means 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 of any kind anytime is to take responsibility for. but even with before we. had a civil room every meeting that. i was going to go to. i'm going to do the best they can to stay out of this please. continue job for. good this is on the way. this is what you go. no because you know we do it's job.

missed out. from one thousand twenty to one thousand nine hundred seventy this whole half century of american history the rate of incarceration was roughly level or about one hundred ten four hundred thousand. and this is a broad span of our history this is because the ruling twenty's and prohibition the depression and all the social change the world war two the post-war economic boom 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 four 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 one nine hundred seventy this all

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 dollars and so you have to wonder how does one cheat why did this half century of stability get ended with this dramatic increase 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 from the federal budget and send it out states of health i realize the need for money to deal with this problem i am glad that in the midst of ministration we have increased the amount of money for handling the problem of dangerous drug. it will be six hundred million dollars this year more money will be

needed to do it and virtually everybody thought the drug war was the number one issue and so you had politicians in both parties and you know district attorneys and elected 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 move the train when i was very young we moved here we moved you know to malone's we used to always well 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 that was very scary as a young child but you know when you live in a 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 x. 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 had 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 not the not to do about it to change their lifestyle. how was it.

after my brother passed away a 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 here and there with a. in the hallway and i used to be a hopeless for monetary and out with station 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 or something and at that we started talking we got to know each other you know at the home many times in and

out over our house. you know my home. was a really a home compared to her house margaret grew up with her parents before the parents all 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 i was pretty much you know once we started going to get i was pretty was there in our house and fourteen years old i was pretty much stay in there because my mom was on drugs she long she knew i was there she really didn't have a problem with it but a kindness started you know liveness 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 trade narcotics and they started watching me and follow me around the stuff like that and 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 and um they locked her up and i got a phone call saying that you know your mother was locked up and they want you to turn yourself in. so i ventured i turned myself in a seventeen a let my mother go and i first time you ever going to joe i want to be you found us because i was. eighteen i was always those. still in high school and we missed the part. 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 bears would be none compared to other experiences in jail because then i would be over eighteen and i would be going to 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. enormous 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 at that he users in a prison population soar because obviously they're far more users enter operations major operations and. we started treating sick people people who were addicted to drugs might remember 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. so 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 to cobb then 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 the 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 had to try to get all the charges pushed together get me one so does that because too much time and over the street not my life i remember pacifically the judge sits in just telling me that element to tom losing. and he said tracy hughes 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 time is going to be a chore for you. well i think it certainly makes sense for for moscow to think. trump in its contacts with the united states just i. the fear that the dominant view in this city is that

it is nearly impossible until the united states kind of settle this domestic divide the environment in d.c. is you know i hate to see this. as work toxic but that's exactly what it is and then i think it's in a way you know you're damned if you do if you're down if. i had a great education a good job and a family that loved me. i never had to worry about how i would eat somewhere i would speak. i'm facing christmas alone out on the streets of london. well you look . at the glory like you only. believe you know to signal that it will still give out food for the homeless.

because you don't really feel like a human being in that. and then. i go i just came over smithsonian gave me this book. the direction to a judge to sentence can be done in two ways you can see a 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 imprisonment 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 my. enter the role of the offender no matter how

insignificant a 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 crimes issue 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 seven hundred ninety s. got a life without parole robbing banks and crossing state lines in one nine hundred thirty four was you know ten years of prison skyjacking in the seventy's for us 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 congress reacted by creating new mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes which congress sent to president reagan was five years me to the minimum five grams of crack cocaine grams like this we go. again 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 and ninety six the federal prison population was thirty six dollars. 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. human history there's no democratic nation that's ever tried to

have such a mess social experiment as we've done that incarceration and we've got more prisoners than any other country in the world and for. numbers i mean i find it a bit disturbing that we have more prisoners from china and they have a billion more people than 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 you know here i was this middle class. career never even

a parking ticket and it was quite a surprise when we went to court. 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 fem up three members of the family viewed it . and we ask what were the ages of the children who saw it she put just want to put six. she says extremely meaningful for the daughter of the mother who is of course

. she loved it. we all did. and this one went to the mess and you mean to your family to know their family was ok that's a huge part of this children who want to know that their families have had their mom or dad so ok. this is the sole shoulders there to go no it's been three years to see of you seen. miss jones solos in our group believe regime here is that you don't speak. doesn't your fault just very good nothing shows phone anyone else in the family of done but show me filter you to fold has been me. up growth a lot of just these last three or four years going on the last. go. swan say the. very first.

they said just me to one year administrative segregation and administrative segregation is twenty three hour long going to be 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 cell i believe 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 you got 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 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 i'm on mine. and those words was the guy was going to buy me my dog

and. you know you know what i realize who are which really was what i kept hearing because saying i. am at my lowest. and. i think right there i realized i had reached my lowest point in life and that the only on the way for me to go from here. another crime another criminal hundred already have met up with both real is right politician for the solution a simple crackdown the reason the criminal justice system isn't working is that we're not sending enough people to jail and keeping there long enough that people are saying general way that they were to lock these rascals up and keep them there for a long time during the one nine hundred eighty s. there was a major shift in the congress and in state legislatures have thout 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 effective all the sensing laws was not just to increase the sentences that people were exposed to so that 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 . every year is going nineteen sixteen and she was very very shy.

by the task that in high school people can decide it in or played basketball she made good grades high school that we went to was seventh through twelfth grade and i was kind of the little tagalong sister and me and my brother were friends and i mean my sister we're friends just kind of watch sure she was. always really friendly always showing nice this is a small town and everybody knows everybody but she got in trouble we'd know about it. i had what i consider an idyllic childhood. and some point when i'm in college i mean guy that works for southwest times record the newspaper there in 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 to get you know i mean ralston lived

to dallas my gosh no you know mom wants 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 bred 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. eight months later we were getting married at the dallas arboretum and all of our family and friends were there and it with 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 why i consider to be a dual personality you know and that this other character would emerge whenever he drank. 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. sandy. but he wouldn't leave her i just kept saying you know let's be friends let's be friends he wanted it to be more so he told me that he was going to europe and that 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 so 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 and eventually think 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 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 germany. 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. i wasn't going to say anything because i'm

literally watching these people destroying my mom's isn't somebody that i really want to confide in and so i have it wasn't very long after that that my lawyer explained to me exactly what it is that my prosecutor won and they wanted her to wear a wire. and try to m.k. as your people people she didn't even know and. she what she refused to do it she said i don't know they speak on i'm not going to do this and this prosecutor said you year round paraphrasing you here cooperate or will ruin your life. with me just manufactured and sentenced him to public will. when the

writing close to the project i'm so pleased. with the crime and clear your own lives and be the woman said. to ignore middle of the room sit. room for the real news room. for people feed the economy because they buy scratch tickets scratch off lottery tickets you know when i was living in the ghetto in new york you know the red apple grocery store uptown had the highest prices in town right and a liquor stores are open and you buy. more expensive in the ghetto and that's how you build an economy it's always built on the backs of the poor america was built on the slave market america was built on prison labor to give them it looked at the good times of america the ne'er do wells it's all very swishy and swell that's over we got to go back to basic.

is that country call russia no one has ever known one has ever had about that country never even had about most cool. kid. killed.

or you will be in. your last years does. it with the people most of congress are not what i mean. to make. really a local superman from him he can see as you know he is if. you're in the form of the media. i'm with you more with the. most of the people but people

. who move to. washington expresses concern over russia's new hypersonic weapons saying there are no effective counter matches the add on god missiles final test will successfully carry out on wednesday. a wave of protests spreads across to the death of a journalist who set himself on fire protesting the difficulties of being a reporter of the country's economic problems. bus french judges decade long probe into the deadly attack on the former president's plane

a case that's long been told in relation.