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 of punished right along with. the have found people don't think so but the collateral consequences of somebodies 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 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 a parent in that camera. and that 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 of any kind anytime is to take responsibility for. but even with. this little. readiness of everybody that. i was going to go to. i'm going to do the best they can to stay out of this booth. for. good this.

this was you guys in good numbers can we be with. the. next chapter. from one thousand twenty two one thousand nine hundred seventy this whole half century of american history the rate of incarceration was roughly level or about one hundred ten per one 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 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 one nine hundred seventy this all changes so that by now the rate of incarceration issue why just over seven hundred and three requests are issue for african-americans is over four thousand four hundred and so you have to wonder how does one cheat why did this half century of stability get ended with this dramatic increase in harsh reaction in. 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 state health expert i realize the need for a mullet. 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 goal it will be six hundred million dollars this year more money will be needed in the doing 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 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 move the train when i was very young when we moved here we moved you know to below 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 to change their lifestyle. that 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. our own. family you tend to trust family when i first saw here and there with the. in the hallway and i used to be a hopeful 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 he is that unlike black with weight . so he would have to say excuse me something in that we started

talking we got to know each other you know at the walk at home many times in and out over at her 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 home 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 another house and fourteen years old i was pretty much stay in there because my mom was on drugs she longs 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 the 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 or stuff like that then i remember the first time. 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 visually i turned myself in a seventeen i 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 juvenile still in high school and we missed the prom. badge when i got out i remember the detective telling me that as soon as i turned eighteen and it was going to come back. and if i didn't

straight up my life that first spears 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 war and 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 the users in a prison populations who are those obviously are far more users than are operations major operations and. we started treating sick people people who were did drugs when i remember talking to my grandmother and having a conversation with her about my life and how far i had fallen she said to me you know trace there 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. you know god is going to far in your darkest hour and only then will 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 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 to the pharmacy 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 trial i told my lord that you know we just have to try to get all the charges pushed together give me one senses because too much time hopefully straight not my life but i remember pacifically the judge said st joe's told me. no limit to tom losing. and he said tracy hughes cooper did in one thousand nine hundred you know 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. question

countries are very reluctant to recognize the fact that is that is why and i formally had also to make that they were perhaps straw dog and cat ok condemning them are siding against and so with lee in the early stages of the war itself their title am being undermined the reconstruction process by the prolongation s.h.s. i think that western countries would want as you ation where this is serious reconstructed but in case you know ways in which he started by a third power not russia iran not by the west and by the g.c.c. or by china.

yes so all this is out of. here. there was no trade or labor standards and environment standards in the original nafta up to five years ago. because relations were more purity economy but now the

revision is very very close intertwined saw i think it's ok to have a new treaty and you never see asian. direction to a judge to sentence can be done in two ways a judge hears 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 were. 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 as you are 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. 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 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 congress reacted by creating new mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes which congress sent to president bush was five years needed to the minimum five grams of crack cocaine grams likes we. can years

minimum is fifty grand of crack cocaine that's like the weight of a kid or these are tiny kuan it's all based on one factor your sentence 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 girls this is a growth that no one could have imagined mass incarceration in the u.s. is really unique in human history. there's no democratic nation that's ever tried to have such a mess social experiment as we've done in a cursory shit 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 story here a line 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 cork. 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. to make first poor old 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 incarcerated she will. we all did. and this one said our what in the message you mean to your family to know their family was ok that's a huge part these children want to know that their families have had their mom or dad say ok. this is the sole shoulder so you go no it's been three years and so you

have you seen. mr also lives in our group believed ratio here is that you've done three. dozen sure folks just very good enough to join the phone do you want to listen to family love done that show me feel you to fold has been me. in the role of a lot of this town these last three or four years going to law. school to 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. 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 this i believe maybe if i buy a cell. that was that door closed 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 know you're going to come out a better person are you going to come out of worship person than you were before you went in and. being in a hole is mirrors and you know i wouldn't wish on anybody. but you locked up for twenty three hours i think you can do is. my words about a grandmother just kept playing over and over again in my mind and those were. as well as the guy was going to buy me my dog and. you know what i realize who are ritually was what i kept hearing the kids say and 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 kind of thing that already fed up with the 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 in jail and keeping there long enough that people are saying general way that they will lock these rascals up and people there for a long cut through 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 the effect of all those sensing was 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 . only us born in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight and she was very very shy but by the time. that in high school people can sat 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. me and my brother were friends and i mean my sister were friends just kind of watch sure she was. always really friendly only

showing nice this is a small town and everybody knows everybody but she got in trouble we'd know about it she says i had what i consider an idyllic childhood and some point when i'm in college i mean guy that works for south west times record the newspaper there and 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 me ralston live to dallas my gosh no you know mom what's was she thinking what 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. 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. 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 i am a sadly saying. that 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 then i never heard anything for a while 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 various then details but said that sandy had been arrested for manufacturing ecstasy and that he wanted to redeem it turning 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 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 is 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. anything because i'm literally watching these people destroying my mom's isn't somebody that i really want to confide in so i have 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 m.k. other people people she didn't even know and. she what she refused to do it she said i don't roll on i'm not going to do this and this prosecutor said you you're around paraphrasing you. to cooperate or will ruin your life. go in and you may never get over till it's over the people this is. my teenage gang rules here. let's remind. you we're through with it but. if you will. come out.

minus. zero. for the. n.f.l. in the way. you want your number ok then we will. come up. someone. bought thing aquatic cost. for you. from up there and i don't think i want to. give it up because

a couple of. you just got me. well of course it would be ok so i'm. watching a football for you because i think you have. to go you want to go there for your own thing nothing. out of your fucking head. full of the united you so.

today the solution is intervention. and it really rival protests gripped venice whaler while the u.s. resorts to sanctions threat senate president much we report on washington's approach to the lots of american country. more families are evacuated from the last pocket of us law makes day for assistance in syria including the wives of these old finders who are. if you used to believe that caliphate is didn't. be an early plane with one hundred fifty seven people on board crushes minutes on.