this week on "our world" with black enterprise we're on location in florida with the women of power summit. coming up next, my one-on-one interview with author, former olympian and point guard for the wnba shock marion jones. and we take an inside look at the criminal justice system. that's our "on the record discussion" that's what's going on in "our world" starting now. ♪

marion jones is on the right track. after serving six months in prison for lying to federal prosecutors about using performance-enhancing drugs, she's come clean about her past is and now shooting for success. i recently caught up with her to talk about her new book and her new career. i just finished reading your new book. it's actually very amazing. talk to me about the journey, you know, that you describe in this book. >> this one really is from the heart. it's just, you know, all about finding forgiveness, all of us go through tough times in our lives. we all make mistakes. it's how do you pick yourself up and dust yourself off and look to the next chapter in your life. no pun intended. but, you know, it's very personal. i wrote a series of letters to my husband while i was in incarcerated. ranging from why i made certain

choices in my life and how to correct those. >> talk to me about some of these choices. when you first were asked the question in front of federal prosecutors about the substances and whether or not you knew what they were, and whether or not you recognized them, you said no. what was going through your head at that time? what made you make that decision? >> all of my success was going through my head. everything that i worked so hard for was going through my head, and knowing that if i didn't say that particular answer, it could all be wiped away. and what i didn't realize is that it would be all wiped away and even more. and so i did what my gut told me to do, and that was to lie at that moment. and it literally was the last ten seconds that i made the decision, and it's one of the things that i base my message that i share with a lot of young people today, and that is, before you make critical

decisions in your life, it's important -- really important -- that you take a break. you take a step back. you really look at the situation. you consult people who have life experience, and then you make a wise choice. and i wish at that moment that i had taken a break. when it was two minutes in the hallway with my attorneys or, you know, ten minutes discussing what the possible consequences were. even though i knew them -- >> right. >> -- you really think that, you know, we all get to a point where we let our ego take control of our emotions and our decisions, and you think that you're untouchable. you get caught up in people patting you on the back and telling you you're great and you don't deal with, you know, certain issues that you have. and that's what i did. and i surrounded myself with people who didn't look out for my best interests. >> it's interesting, of the people who -- you were surrounded with, you're the one who ended up incarcerated. they did not, you know, that has to be a heck of a thing to think

about and wrestle with. >> i don't spend too much time thinking about it. i don't necessarily think about it. what it comes down to with me, i broke the law, you know, and i did my time. you know, i'm not here to judge anybody else, you know. there will be another day for them to be judged at some time else. that's not my job. you know, i did what i had to do, and it actually wound up being a blessing for me. you know, i've been put here to do something special. i've been blessed with this amazing gift, to connect with people, to communicate on a certain level that people think that they know me, and that's not something that i learned. it's something that's been given to me and i have to share it. being in a cell sometimes 24 out of 24 hours a day, you learn a lot about yourself. and it was a blessing. i served my sentence at one of the hardest federal prisons in the country, female prisons. and was attacked while i was in prison, had to defend myself.

spent 46-plus days in solitary confinement, not where you're out for 12 hours of the day, solitary confinement when you're in a box by yourself for sometimes 24 out of 24 hours out of the day, and you have nothing but time. you have nothing but time to figure out who the heck you are. >> yeah. >> you have nothing but time to figure out why you made certain choices, and most importantly, what you want to do when you get out. like, do you want to -- did i want to just disappear from the public eye. >> right. >> and although it has been difficult to have to talk about my mistakes over and over again or to relive certain tough times in my life, it's been more than worth it, because i see people are being blessed by hearing my story. and so i'm glad i made the decision not to just disappear. and i'm even more so glad that i decided to play basketball, because it's given me a much bigger stage to share my story.

sure, i like the challenge of playing at 35 years old with 3 kids. >> you are a 34-year-old rookie. >> don't say that. >> i'm impressed. i'm impressed. i can barely get a successful 32. you are a 34-year-old rookie in the league and running around with 21-year-olds and holding your own. what was it like to be a rookie again and the new fish? >> it was very humbling. it showed that i could play with these ladies, but i have a lot of work to do. >> did they treat you like a rookie? >> they did. i was hazed. >> were you carrying bags and -- >> i did. all these ladies have been through it. they've achieved certain successes in the sport of basketball that i haven't yet. but i think i gained a lot of respect, one, by going through with the hazing. >> yeah. >> and, two, nobody's going to outwork me. >> that's for sure. >> i mean, that's hands down, and once the ladies realized that i didn't want anything handed to me. i worked to get in the league and i'm willing to work to be a success in the league, and once they saw that, i gained their

respect. >> please welcome marion jones. >> one of the ways that you give back now is through the take a break foundation. talk to us a little bit about what that is. >> well, the message of take a break is something that's very close to my heart. while i was incarcerated and i made the choice while i was in there that i wasn't going to disappear, that i was going to be back in the public eye and that i was going to be giving back. and i wondered how can i share my story and my experience, young people, older people alike, on how to make better decisions. and i went through all the different scenarios. >> yeah. >> then it came back to that moment that i wish i had slowed down. i wish i had taken a break. you know, taken a moment to really think about the consequences of what you say or of your actions and that's how it came about. and the positive response that i've gotten -- received from the young people and the parents

alike is enough for me to keep it going. i was so mad at you, and my daughter, you know, she had her pictures all over the wall, and the day i had to tell her, it just broke my heart. and she pulled the pictures off the walls. and i didn't know what to say. i said, you know, people make mistakes, but i was so mad at you. and i'm so happy to see you today. it just really fills my heart. the fact that you get up here and you put yourself out there and you're real. and we can feel your pain. i am sitting here crying and i just -- >> 50 years from now when you finally retire from the wnba -- >> yeah. >> -- the kids are out of the house. >> yeah. >> everything's done. how do you want people to remember marion jones? >> well, i look forward to that day when i can just sit on my porch with my white rocking chair with my freshly squeezed lemonade -- >> you will never do that. you will never sit in a roarking

cha rocking chair. you'll be in the 80 and under basket ball league. >> i want people to remember i'm a person that's been blessed with amazing gifts, physical, the ability to communicate and connect with people, but a person that made bad choices but at some point figured it all out and i'm here nfor a robeason an give back. i don't want people to remember me by marion jones who made bad choices, no, that doesn't stand up to the test of time really. people remember folks who made positive contributions to our world, and that's how i hope i'm remembered. up next, we're back in studio for a look at racial disparities in the american prison system. >> three communities in new york city where 70% of the prisoners throughout the state of new york come from. >> three communities in 70% of the state's prison population comes from these three areas. >> these three counties in new

york city.

according to all reports, the united states has the highest incarceration rate on the planet. at the current moment more than 7.3 million people are either paroled, on probation or incarcerated. although african-americans comprise only 12% of the u.s.

population, they make up 41% of the nation's prison population. joining me to discuss the incarceration crisis are barry schect, an attorney for the innocence project, monif monifa bondeli, from black civic participation and michael court, philadelphia criminal trial lawyer and activist. thank you all for joining us. i think the most stunning number that i've ever seen is the fact that in 1970 there were only somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000 people incarcerated in the whole country. 40 years later, 2.5 million people are incarcerated. how did we get from 250,000 in 1970 to 2.5 million in 2011? how does that happen? >> very simple. two things happened within our sentencing system. the first was mandatory minimum sentences in state and federal courts. just completely took discretion away from judges and if you

committed certain kinds of crimes, you were going to go to prison for long periods, period. that's it. and those were most often associated with drug laws. and the drug laws alone during that period are what accounts for the huge increase in incarcerati incarceration. >> the war on drugs began in 1984, and over that time as barry points out we've seen a skyrocket in incarceration rates particularly among african-american people, really among poor people. why is the war on drugs so central to this? >> if you look in communities across class lines and race, you'll find drugs, drug users and you'll find drug sellers. but what's happened is the way that our policing system are designed in cities is that there's a racial profiling with communities with high numbers of african-american and latino people, so you see more drug convictions coming out of particular communities which will give you the illusion there's more drug use. >> so, why is race so important in the criminal justice system?

why does race play such a big factor? >> in terms of race, people say, mike, you always play the race card and why do you always talk about race when it comes to the criminal justice system. my answer is simple. the first question i pose when they say race doesn't matter, let's say tomorrow you have to go to court as a defendant, and you will, alaska, alabama, arkansas, and you have a choice to go as a white man defendant or black man defendant, nobody is blacker than me, but i would be white, no doubt about it. absolutely, absolutely. >> that's an interesting observation. >> the numbers are crazy, but crazier when it comes in this mix. >> if i went to princeton and find the same rate of drug use, so why the overemphasis on black neighborhoods? >> i mean, the reason is obvious. i mean, you know, if -- you know, they've done all these studies of racial profiling, you

know, on the new jersey turnpike and all kinds of different thoroughfares, and, you know, the numbers show that there are more white people carrying drugs down the new jersey turnpike than black people, but no matter how many times we try to reform the system, more black people are being pulled over for it. >> and this isn't happenstance, there's a pipeline into the prisons in the country that links directly back to communities that high levels of police officers in there. it's overmill tarrization of areas, so people's entire communities are profiled, and racial profiling is happening. and the pipe line, if you look at a city, new york city, there are three communities in new york city where 70% of the prisoners throughout the state of new york come from. and it's no surprise that those are also communities where you have -- >> you said three communities and 70% of the state's prison population come from these communities? >> these three areas, these three counties in new york city.

what you see also is these are the same counties where you have heavy policing and special programs like the street crimes unit which is responsible for the killing, and there's a intense level of policing that influences people into these processes and on into prison. >> one of the really fascinating things in terms of trying to change this and break the bottleneck is andrew cuomo just elected governor of new york -- >> yeah. >> -- said something sensible, you know, we have to cut budgets and we have prisons upstate new york where, you know, they're being underutilized, you know, we have to close some of those down. he's having so much trouble trying to close these prisons. all of a sudden people are saying it's hurting jobs in upstate new york, there's literally a prison industrial complex that, you know, has an economic interest. >> and that's an important point that we need to think about. and, michael, you know, i know you've done a lot of work on the criminal justice system both on the activist side and as an

attorney. what does it mean for there to be a financial stake in prisons as barry just pointed out that there are actually jobs attached? we go to some cities where towns would shut down if the prisons shut down. how do we make sense of that? what do we do about it? >> there's money to be made in the prison industrial complex, no doubt about it. but if it was only about the money, then the white boys would go to jail just like the black guys go to jail, but that doesn't happen. >> the key link is there's an economic factor but then there's political power and representation, and that's sharply linked to high incarceration rates. we keep focusing on the individual's loss of rights and political voice which is a travesty nonetheless. but the entire communities, political power, is diminished when high levels of people from that community are incarcerated. in many states around the country, once you get a felony conviction, your right to vote is being taken away. and virginia and mississippi in particular where one to three and one to four black men in those states are

disenfranchised. >> barry. of your work is dealing with people who have been wrongfully convicted. if you were to guess what percentage of people incarcerated are wrongfully convicted? >> you know, there are some pretty staggering numbers. there have been a number of studies and, you know, people have guesstimated, they've done little better than that, but if you want to be conservative, say 3% are wrong convicted and it may be higher. >> that's closer to 100,000 people. it's a lot of people. >> a lot of people. >> we want to talk more about this and some solutions when we come back. i think once you educate a person and give a person a job, 90% of the crime will stop. -i'll never forget that moment.

woman: as long as i live. man: i realized, at that moment, when we first saw the damage, these people really needed us and i was going to make a difference, right here in my community. together with local responders, we cleared trees and collapsed walls. we had to get to the family trapped beneath. as a citizen-soldier, i made a difference. announcer: be there for your community, at nationalguard.com. my name's reggie. just recently, my wife and i took in her sister's children. now, we already had 4, so i went from becoming a family man to a man with a bigger family. and you can't eat love, so i don't know

how i'm going to feed them tonight. how was that, reg? i think i look more like denzel. that's cold, man. announcer: play a role in ending hunger. visit feedingamerica.org/hunger and find your local food bank. welcome back. we're still here with barry schect, monifa and michael court, we're talking about the incar ration crisis and we're moving from analysis now to solutions. can you please tell me what can we do now, people will obviously say don't commit the crime, be responsible don't do drugs or

steal. all of us i think are in agreement on that. but moving beyond that point, what do we do in terms of this mass incars ration thing? >> what's the solution? the solution is a multistep approach. first education, and not just education, but paid education. even if it's minimum wage to pay these folks to come in to learn reading, writing and arithmetic, but for the black folks not just reading and writing and arithmetic, but history and cultural courses to find out about african-american history and ancient african history and after that paid job training and then job placement. i think once you educate a person and give a person a job, 90% of the crime will stop. >> huh. >> we also have to support sound policy around prison incarceration. i mean, we have to look at the sentencing laws in every state, the federal laws and try and get our elected officials to back away from the tough on crime stance that they're taking as a means for lowering crimes in communities. it's not true.

it doesn't work. research has shown that's not what you use to rid a community of crime, there's other sensible better things like sensible education systems and the like. >> one of the really interesting political developments is that recently there's a group called right on crime. and a number of these people on the right recognize that there are too many people in prison, that these are 63 sclerotic broken-down bureaucracies. >> cost too much. >> cost too much, but good re-entry programs, sane parole systems and get rid of the mandatory minimum laws and doing something sensible about reducing narcotics and reducing the vot lulume in the system an think that's a coalition that we need to work with. >> thank you for joining us. we'll be back with "our world" with black enterpre a bit.

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