that's sharply linked to high incarceration rates.g on the individuals' loss of rights and political voice which is a travesty nonetheless, but the entire community's 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 taken away from you and you have virginia and mississippi in particular where one to three and one to four black men in those states are disenfranchised. >> barry, much of your work with the innocence project is dealing with people who have been wrongfully convicted. if you had to guess, what percentage of the people incarcerated right now would you say are wrongfully convicted. >> there are pretty staggering numbers. there have been a number of studies. people have guesstimated, they have done a little better than that, but you want to be conservative, say 3% of people are wrongfully convicted, may very well be higher. >> still close to 100,000 people. >> that's a lot of people. >> that'

education of incarceration, 4,000 pretreatment, 25,000 for incarceration. we must meet with attorney general holder, petitioned the president to relieve a remedy in action now. the most fundamental of all of our rights is their right to vote. a "new york times" editorial last week we are one vote away from the state's right supreme court. that's 1896. of the 34 states are attacking the voting rights act there is a common theme attacked workers' rights to organize, the working people's lobby, reapportioning people into isolation, attack public education and fire teachers. use the scheme on the impact of the vote not to stop the vote the points. there's a big game between the mavs and the heat. if the referee or a player were to shave points it would corrupt the whole game. now what does this mean in politics? this term is how we're going to end of the war based on the the political will of the country is. beatniks and 112 calls and notes. arguably because to vote in chicago led by congressman paulson, the margin. in '68, dr. king killed, kennedy killed. they

that is not the criminalization bad it's alternatives to incarceration and recognizing that there's addiction problems whenever you look at the problems of violence and mexico it's a concern to everyone we want to be able to support the reduction of a at they the importance of the rule of law colombia has been a success through strong leadership they've reduced the power of the cartels to be the terrorist organizations that fuel the drug trafficking there and so there are signs of success we need to build upon those and i think there's an increased willingness to look at new ideas you know geoffrey hoon south of not to change the fundamental point ok jeffrey a lot of the south of the border a lot of people would say the united states is far more concerned with security than with the consumption issue i mean should shouldn't be balanced out a lot more because a lot of those guns i mean i don't know all the numbers because it's not you legal but the guns come from the north and they go to the south and that's where all this killing is happening. that's certainly true the guns are righ

and many of the states like texas which has high incarceration rates are reduced and then put in more money into reentry programs rehabilitation programs and trying to reduce the incarceration write these are absolutely correct things to do we are reducing our spending on prevention i think we need to continue to emphasize that that message that we give nationally and internationally makes a difference in consumption as well and i'm jeff or do you want to make a quick comment on that before we go to the break yeah i just want to say i think the crucial part of finding the middle ground is that the supply side of the market the production and sale ok as well as possession has to be legal if you just decriminalize possession but you still try vigorously to keep the market underground to go after the traffickers to go after production you're still going to have all the corruption and violence that we currently have so again it's a false hope to think that we can have an easy middle ground just by decriminalizing demand side we have already decided to jump in here gentlemen jump in here w

it is not strictly about alternative -- incarcerating. alternative sentencing is authorized. and incentivize within the legislation. also, we really have not talked much about this today, but there is an increase in date for date earning credit. for every four days -- for every two days -- and we are days, there's two days credit. that would help reduce the population. also in terms of in our jail system, 80% are basically pretrial approximately, and approximately 20% are pre- sentence. the legislation also authorizes changes and that the district attorney and share of have to agree to that could further impact in a positive way dropping population appropriate for alternative. but no matter what happens, the share of and i completely agree the our populations are going to rise, and in addition, that the state numbers that they have estimated are basically very understated. we anticipate for adult probation that we will have an increase to 700 offenders that will be on post-custody release supervision. what will be key is how the courts react in terms of their sentencing. are

the incarceration halls in communities pipeline, so building those mechanisms. i spent the last year once a month working with a reentry group in boston, and it actually was funded by obama's stimulus plan. everybody wonders where the stimulus program money went, and one thing if it was fun this program. working with the oldest anti- party organization in new england, which ted kennedy was a champion of. we created a series of workshops for the whole year based around a human-rights platform. not looking at these folks who need to be saved but as folks who can engage in a dynamic process to think critically about the situation they are in, understand the situation they are in so they can make informed choices and the other folks on to the information they are getting. we took malcolms idea. we got the united nations convention of the rights of a child. we constructed some of the basic elements. over the years, we created human rights report cards where the young folks in me this organization, who were just coming home, one month they did a report card with a gra

that this has had in minority communities, 70 people -- 70% of the people that we incarcerate -- this is a system based on punitive measures. this indicates that we have to fix the system and that is why i am here today. we have to fix this. >> john ray is a direct question. if you are presented with evidence that the police officers have committed perjury, or if you have this attorney in your office who has hidden evidence in the pursuit of a conviction, will you take action against this? >> we are aware that we're looking at many cases -- with the first homicide -- homicide conviction for this case that was over 20 years old at the office was working on for over one year. and we have the prosecutorial problems in this case. it appears that this was possibly prompted by the police. we believe that this evidence was material, and we decided to read prosecute the case. we have an integrity and it today, and we're looking at a series of cases and convictions. the answer is that i will hold those individuals accountable, and if there is a case to be prosecuted i would do so. as far you h

by the way, the cost and giving you does not include that trevino incarceration as a result. there are many other things included. supervisor kim: it will be helpful as the program continues to expand to collect what cost savings you have from the program. there are other values and benefits besides dollars to a program like this. the one thing i do want to say and we talked about this, how frequently victims are left out of the criminal justice process and how alienating and isolating that can be for victims of crime. we know victims also often become offenders and there can be a circle if we do not address the injustice victims have gone through and address what they're going through from the harm that has been done in their neighborhood and community. >> absolutely. another thing we are exploring is we are looking a initially at visiting victims of domestic violence within 72 hours from the time event occurs to make sure they are availing themselves of services and impacting the school where there are kids involved. there are a lot of things that initially may be impact fa

we have over incarcerated members of minority communities in this country to the point where we have destroyed entire communities. san francisco is no difference to anybody else. the metrics of using convictions as an indicator of success are not necessarily metrics i would subscribe to. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. supervisor kim: how many of your fte's are attorneys? >> 125. supervisor kim: thank you for the graph and your answer to the question -- i noticed there was a different in the budget between public defenders and the district attorney and sustained court opinion was helpful in understanding that. the movement toward restorative justice is something i have life-support. i would love to see explored in juvenile justice. i know it is often talked about in juvenile justice and the staff and judge their have talked about it but it would be great to see a specific program around that because it has been so successful in other places and in other states. new zealand is the country we often talk about with restorative justice, but they are able to close their detention centers

they are still incarcerating youth at a cost of $230,000 per youth. you could send a youth to 3 years in law school in stan ford and yale. beyond that, every year we have looked to issues of critical importance. not only locally but throughout the nation. 2 years ago, we looked at undocumented youths particularly those from honduras and other countries where a hostile relationship were being deportd and sent back without parental support. so this year, we focus on the problems of guns and violence in our schools. both to and from schools and at schools. we raise this not as an insend iary issue. but as the headlines read and give the impression that youth themselves are to blame for these incidents that we often hear about involving guns and gun violence. but to recognize as a society, we have done little to decrease the proliferation of guns on our streets. we have done little. it's just like the war to drugs. you know, it seems almost strange toous those words since it's been such a failure. but the same thing we've seen with guns. particularly thos

as you know, the united states has the highest incarceration rate in the world. more than 2.3 million people are locked up in america. approximately one-third of these prisoners claim some form of religious affiliation. islam is the fastest-growing religion among prisoners. about 80% of those who join a religion in prison join is long. studies show the typical inmate who joins is long is poor, black, upset about racism, and not particularly interested in italy's politics. in preparation for this hearing, my staff spoke with representatives from the bureau of prisons, state prison officials from across the country. none of them are here to testify today, i regret. the bureau of prisons and state officials informed us that they routinely require religious staff, including imams, rabbis, and priests to undergo rigorous vetting. they told us that any religious book or recorded message must be screened and guards monitor the services. when we asked about radicalization by outside and lutzes, they told us that prisoners do not have internet access and all nonlegal mail

what alternative to incarceration should be explored in order to curb the mass incarceration. dr. ron daniels says it's time to declare war on the war on drugs and vigorously open up discussions, the base, dialogue in the black community to explore just and humane alternatives to a failed strategy. is the regulation of drugs a viable option and alternative? time for a conversation. just a discussion. i now have the privilege and the honor. i know they've been sitting up here for, you know, a while. but to introduce our distinguished panel and i'm not quite sure what order they are up mere. but the order that i introduce them on them will be the order that they will begin responding. this is going to be in the format of what we called a guided discussion. i raise up questions to the specific panelist, they will respond five minutes, then back and forth and open up to you at the community. is that okay? jasmin tyler, deputy director at the drug policy alliance, nation's leading organization promoting alternatives to drugs grounded in science, compassion, health, and human rights. ja

looking at workers from collaborative courts, looking at solutions besides incarceration, dealing with mental health and behavioral health issues, rather than using the jails as a solution to that, and we are also working around juvenile issues to make sure we are doing all we can for those under the age of 18 in our community. those are the efforts we are undertaking. jeff and matt have been a fantastic partners in this. as far as we know, it is a new day in these efforts and really trying to work collaboratively and we hope to have all your support in doing that. [applause] >> of course, that is not to say that we are not going to fight it out in court because, of course, that is what we do. i would like to briefly introduce ross mirkarimi, who is a supervisor here in the city, and he has been a champion of many criminal justice issues, including prisoner reentry. i also want to thank and acknowledge debra atherton. thank you. supervisor mirkarimi: it is nice to see everybody. jeff is generous. i was not expecting to be up here. i know you have had a productive day. i think that the