incarceration rates especially black incarceration rates have soared regardless whether the crime is going up or down in any given community or the nation as a whole. what explains the sudden explosion in incarcerations? the birth of the system unprecedented in world history sent crime and crime rates well the answer is the war on drugs and the get-tough move meant the way the putative mess that washed over the united states. drug convictions alone accounted for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal prison system and more than half of the increase in the state prison system between 1985 and 2000 to the greatest expansion of our prison system. to get a sense of how large the contribution of war on drugs has made to the mass incarceration, consider this. there are more people in prisons and jails today just for drug offenses than were incarcerated cahal in 1980. most americans violate the drug law in some form in their lifetime, most do. but the enemy and know for mack has been racially defined to feed not by accident. this has been waged almost exclusively in the poorer comm

i'm an incarcerated guy. incarceration was not the same as rehabilitation for me. it just wasn't the same. but i have been over 500 jails and prisons in 23 years. i speak nine languages now. they're all english, but i speak fortune 500. i speak corporate, i speak kid. i have a 5-year-old. he is safe all day in the home that i have created, not the one i grew up in. my wife is an afflicted convicted lady. she actually did more jail time than i did she has seniority at home. [laughter] >> normal people don't laugh right there at all. don't the wives only have seniority? yes, especially in the penal system. but that was a double-edged sword there, i hope you got it. some of your pot smokers or ex-pot smokers, the jokes won't kick in for a long time. marijuana retards the ha ha muscle. three months from now somebody will go they're all different dads. sorry, your honor, i apologize, i wasn't laughing at you. [laughter] >> the concept here of humor as a basis for approaching a topic that is awkward to discuss has never been a mystery to us. the art of that is sometimes

and if you look at other jurisdictions throughout the state, you'll find heavy incarceration rates and not used. in fact the prosecutor is not using those programs. we're very fortunate in our district attorney. he is very visionary, and i just commend him for his stepping out there and taking this position which i support, also, in terms of we have got to focus on treatment rather than say, well, there's this program or that program when in fact the state hasn't funded it. so it's placed that burden on the local counties. >> tal, can you respond to marty's point and wendy's? >> i can say just based on my experience in dealing with individuals who have drug problems, most of the time i don't think that the threat of a quote, unquote, felony conviction is going to necessarily prevent them from using. i think what would make more sense is to provide them with more services and to be more individualized in terms of treatment and how we address specific individuals. i also would note that when you are facing a misdemeanor charge, you're facing up to a year in county jail. now, sometimes yo

i do not believe that incarceration has taken us where we need to be. i believe the war on drugs has been a failure. when we institutionalize people over extended periods of time, we take low-level offenders in the early stages and harden them and we send them to the university of crime. by the time they get out of prison, they become a bigger social problem. where i come from, whether it is the [unintelligible] i am on the side of saying we need to reform our system and reduce the number of people we send to jail or prison. we need to reserve that space for people that are truly dangerous and have no way of fixing themselves. we have to realize there will be some people that will go to prison because the rest of us need to have some people in prison in order for us to be safe but that is a small minority. there are many other solutions out there whether it is someone who has engaged in drugs or has a drug addiction. or engaging in some other low- level crime. every move away from a cursory those people in the early stages and deal with different forms

we rank first in the world in the per capita incarceration of our fellow citizens. the russians are fading fast in second or third place together with the belarus people. the rates of the incarceration are five, six, seven, eight times than most in other societies, europe and elsewhere, though their rates of nonviolent crime and drug use are not that much different than ours. so if another country were to lock up its own people at the rate that we do, and if our rates of incarceration were more normative to the rest of the world, we would regard with that other country was doing as a massive violation of human rights. that's the way we would look at it. now, the other point here is what we're doing is not even consistent with american history. i mean, we had 500,000 people behind bars in 1980 and now we have 2.3 million, 2.4 million people behind bars and almost have 5,000 people behind bars just for a drug violation. there are as many people behind bars for a drug violation than we had for everything in 1980. it's not consistent with global standards and not consis

they will become another incarceration statistic. and not only them. for that second and third generation in the families. having worked in the prison system for years, it was nothing to walk on the yard and see three generations of families out there. it's such a privilege to work in san francisco, because we are creating a system that includes all the partners. the community-based organization and the sheriff system and the collaborative court system and the d.a. and the chief of police. and that's what it takes, when people talking about changing the system. everyone working together collaboratively and unselfishly, keeping our eye on the prize. we have implemented evidence-based model of adult probation. all that means is that everything we do is based on evidence. motivational interview. and the type of services. and risks needs instrument tools. so we know what that individuals's needs are. but we have taken it a step forward for this population. and we are the only probation department in the state that has created a specialized group, 18-25 yea

if another country were to lock up its own people at the rate that we do, and if our rates of incarceration were more normative to the rest of the world, we would regard with that other country was doing as a massive violation of human rights. that's the way we would look at it. now, the other point here is what we're doing is not even consistent with american history. i mean, we had 500,000 people behind bars in 1980 and now we have 2.3 million, 2.4 million people behind bars and almost have 5,000 people behind bars just for a drug violation. there are as many people behind bars for a drug violation than we had for everything in 1980. it's not consistent with global standards and not consistent with our own history. it's costing a vast amount of money and i think what you see is for some of the d.a.'s and others are beginning to say enough is enough. we're seeing prison populations beginning to decline but when it comes down to the question, who are the first people we should stop putting behind bars? who is the people who really don't belong there? it's people whose only offense is posses

people not only deciding laws should force incarceration through a system function of the state is just yesterday little yes i want to i don't know whether i'm as a steward not only are we imprisoning our own people but we're doing it using using nixon's failed drug war but we're doing it in a very bizarre and arguably very racist fashion you look at the stats on who's using illegal drugs in the united states pot heroin cocaine the illegal drugs and by about a ten to one ratio it's white teenagers and yet you look at who's incarcerated for it and by about a ten to one ratio it's young african-american men right i mean this is there is there is there is something wrong on all whole buncha levels here a whole lot of levels i mean part of a. is that as you know we've had thirty five years of stagnant wages there are no more with the d.m.d.'s realisation of the country there are no more good paying jobs for people with just high school education there's a sense of hopelessness in the large communities of people that's one two there's no it's more correctly pointed out a profit motive than l

i think that you still have the majority of those individuals who were incarcerated with state prison for possession either had strike priors, serious offenses, or they had pled down from a sales case. >> tal, let me ask you to respond to perhaps marty's point. you're a deputy public offender in san francisco and you've handled dozens of drug case, drug possession cases, you've been -- a lot of people caught their attention when you were quoted in the press saying the way we handle drug enforcement here in california is in effect a war on crumbs instead of the often used phrase on drugs. how do you respond to his remarks? >> well, i think the first thing that we have to recognize is that the majority of people who are caught up in the criminal justice system and who are prosecuted for this type of offense for possession offenses and to some degree possession for sale offenses, the vast majority are indigent people and the vast majority of those indigent people are people of color. so what you have are two systems in place. you have a system where privileged white middle class people b

people not only deciding laws should force incarceration through a system function of the state is just yesterday when we had one and i don't know whether i'm as a steward not only are we imprisoning our own people but we're doing it using using nixon's failed drug war but we're doing it in a very bizarre and arguably very racist fashion or you look at the stats on who's using illegal drugs in the united states pot heroin cocaine the illegal drugs and by about a ten to one ratio it's white teenagers and yet you look at who's incarcerated for it and by about a ten to one ratio it's young african-american men right i mean this is there is there is there is something wrong on all whole buncha levels here a whole lot of levels i mean part of it is that as you know we've had thirty five years of stagnant wages there are no more with the d.m.d.'s realisation of the country there are no more good paying jobs for people with just high school education there's a sense of hopelessness and in large communities of people that's one two there's a nail as mark correctly pointed out a profit motive th

when we incarcerate somebody, we have to do something for them. i was incarcerated for 28 years. when they come out, they are worse than when they were in prison. the thing we need to do, be in touch with the individuals we work with. during the time they are going to sentencing. we need to provide something while they are incarcerated. you just wait for the time to go by. there is no criteria. what you need to do, but you need your high-school diploma. when your time is up, you go. ewing got to do anything. there is nothing you have to do. -- you ain't got to do anything. there is nothing you have to do. they get involved with other gang members and they get worse. the thing we have to do, and if we want it to work, i believe everybody is redeemable. i really believe that. [applause] it's not so, i would not be here. you know? i know i am making an impact on society. i know that. the thing we have to, as the community, -- come as as a community. that is the problem. when i am ready to go to juvenile hall, i have problems getting a pass. and i go there all the time. just to be ab

the people who are incarcerated now for crappy marijuana laws. what they'd rather what they had rather do. i get your point and i just want to say to howie and everybody else i didn't mean that we shouldn't tax it i just said as the motivation for legalization that the government can make money on it shouldn't be the only motivation for legalization of a policy it should be good public policy first but this idea that hey let's legalize it so we can tax it now we should have good solid public policy reasons for for legalizing it but if we're going to we have to have nationalized and regulated that means that there's going to be some costs associated with that at the very least it's not inappropriate or cover those costs or something called a tax right now when if we want to discourage it the way we do i mean yes we tax cigarettes and alcohol but we certainly are trying to discourage cigarette use through astronomically high taxes so you know is the drug use going to be the same thing are we going to tax it to the max or not will. jack in philly he

we were under 2,000 physical arrests of juveniles and in favors of alternatives to incarceration. this is the model we used. i was at bay view and this is exactly what we did and achieved reduction in homicides and the emphasis wasn't on narcotics and incarceration and as thorough the study is there is someone wiser that says bad data gives you bad information. in that time we adding mit our data is mad. our data is much bmplt i invite you to do a survey work with the youth guidance center and the probation department to come up with a new survey to suggest how far we have come rather than suggest that you did very well and passionately that we're in the middle of a current trend that actually ended what is now four years ago. >> right absolutely so let me be clear we are using data from 2009 because that was the most recent data publicly accessible to us. 2010 there was a severe glitch in the classification data system with the police department and we weren't able to use that data and of course now that you upgraded our ssz this is the poverty opportunity to do a new evaluation

how much education had you had before you were incarcerated?actually, i'd never read a book until i came to prison. >> you'd never read a book. >> never read a book. >> now he says he hopes to continue his education until he gets his phd. >> "to educate citizens about liberty." >> by 2007, wes caines had already served 17 years for taking part in a shoot-out in which one man was killed and another was seriously injured. he knows how lucky he is to be getting an elite education from bard. >> they made an investment in people that society had written off and people who even today feel that we shouldn't have this opportunity. >> not every prisoner gets the opportunity. only about 10% of the inmates who apply to the college program are accepted. prison life can be so routine and depressing, it's no wonder that these men jump at the chance to escape with their minds if not with their bodies. >> ahh! >> travis darshan dropped out of school when he was 14. when he was 17, he was arrested with two friends for robbing and killing a taxi driver. travis d

are there certain people who would be better subject to medical treatment instead of incarceration. are there certainly people who we actually think would be better off in prison than not being in prison? those types of decisions, i think, are going to be much more useful coming out of the neuroscience in the near term. in the long term, maybe we can get to the point where we make individualized decision-making, but so far it hasn't actually panned out. >> to all of you, do you think that it would be appropriate to keep this out of the courtroom, for instance, until there is a lot more certainty, or should we be using it now and run the risk that we're reaching potentially wrong conclusions? >> i'll jump in first on that and say it's already here. so the idea that we should wait for the science to get better, i think, is just, it's too late for that. so the cat is already out of the bag. the question is what do you do now that it's in the courtroom. well, we have dualing experts. we have judges sitting in a gate keeping role who have to decide whether or not the evidence should be a

the behavior that got them incarcerated, we shouldn't accept that same behavior while they're incarcerated with us. >> changing the way things had been done for decades wasn't going to be easy, but it was going to happen. that was the mandate. the first step came in leveling the playing field. >> you hear the saying, power is in numbers. and that's really true. you put 150, 200 class x murderers in a room together and that's a lot of power. you take that number down and knock it down to 50 and you put a couple extra officers there, and it really kind of balances things out. >> today, anywhere you look within stateville there are rarely more than 50 prisoners together. oftentimes there are fewer. unlike many other prisons around the country where hundreds of prisoners congregate, at stateville, whether it's in the prison yards, dining hall or any other location, the number of inmates is always limited. these same limitations also apply anytime prisoners are moved from one area of the prison to another. >> in the past we used to move 200, 300 inmates at a time. now it's no more than 50 inmat

. >> my name is jesus garcia, i have been incarcerated for nearly 12 1/2 years.ncarcerated for first degree murder and i have life plus 26 years to serve. >> when we met jesus garcia at penitentiary of new mexico he had recently been involved in the bloody assault of two officers. >> leading up to that day there had been incidents where they messed with me. that was the third time. i said, that was it. that's enough. i broke my tv, made a couple shanks and assaulted them. assaulted one of them. i got him, and then another officer came to his rescue and obviously trying to defend myself, i assaulted him, too. >> they were slashed around the head, neck, came very close to the jugular on one of the officers. >> i remember running into the pod. there was an inmate between both of them and they were both being stabbed. >> aaron bell rushed to aid his fellow officers moments after the assault began. >> i hit the inmate, tried to grab him by the arm and i slipped. and i didn't realize what i slipped on was all blood. >> it took a couple of minutes before we got other of

-- should be incarcerated.agreed to do this, called the dealer back and he came and was arrested and ultimately it is alleged that police revealed her identity to the dealer, who was then let out i believe the next day and came back and smothered her death with another man and dismembered and set her on fire. it was a very brutal and traumatic death. it was a very common theme i found with the risks involved in these cases were often higher than the charges these people were facing. there was also the case of a young man in washington state and jeremy. he was found selling eight methadone pills to appeal it turns out was working as a confidential informant also. he signed a contract under pressure to become an informant. he agreed to do four things to get him freed of the charges. not only did he do those forced things, he did another after that and another and another. ultimately, he did 14 stings and still not let off. at one point, he got a heroin trafficker behind bars. the guy got out and threatened his li

one thing about being incarcerated is it all comes down to a loss. you know, a loss of freedom.of people. loss of family, friends. it's one great big loss. but you begin to realize that i don't want to give the system my mentality. i don't want to give the system my sanity. i don't want to give them my integrity. i don't want to give them my loyalty. they're fighting for it. every day, it's a fight in here. every day, you're fighting for something. what i decided to do, i sought mental health. mental health didn't come to me. i went to them. i told them that i would like some help. >> he's been in the idu, our segregation unit, disciplinary segregation unit, i think for 5 1/2 months now. and he's been conduct clear throughout that time. so that told me that he really is motivated. how you doing, man? welcome. >> thank you. >> they got you up today, right? >> wednesday. >> wednesday? >> bailey was recently transferred from idu to the residential treatment unit or rtu, where he's given more privileges and ongoing counseling. >> other guys like, yeah. we can do it like he did it, y

leads the world in incarceration.n new york city, the family of a 7-year-old boy has filed suit against police in the city saying the boy was handcuffed and interrogated for 10 hours for allegedly stealing $5. wilson reyes was detained in a room at his bronx school for four hours, then take into a precinct house where he was held for another six hours in charge with robbery, according to the lawsuit. the boy's mother snapped a photo of him hang up to ruling saying -- in the icelandic media report has revealed new details about u.s. attempts to investigate the whistleblowing website wikileaks. is spokesperson told the broadcaster ruv at the agency landed in 2011 without warning in a bid to investigate wikileaks operations inside iceland. but the country's home security ordered the agents to leave. wikileaks founder julian assange has repeatedly voiced fears he could face u.s. prosecution after the site published troves of classified material revealing us abuses. he remains in the ecuador embassy in london in a bid to a

i will prosecute those five individuals and we will incarcerate them. we will remove them from our community. unless we are able to address those underlying issues that got us here in the first place, the whole cycle of arrestings, prosecuting, and incarcerating is not enough. >> we said you can't arrest your way out of this problem, what can you do? >> you can educate yourself out of this problem. the one thing we know is that if you are educated, your opportunities increase. if you are not educated, we find that young men and young women who drop out of school, their opportunities decline. >> thank you for being here. this has been a great conversation. we hope it won't be the last one. >> i hope so as well. thank you so much. >> thanks, again. all right folks, so what is your take on all this? the violence, the young lives it's snatching away. my mailbag. i want your ideas and of course we'll share them in mcginty's mail bag. >>> still ahead tonight, a scholarship surprise. wait until you see the moment when one local high school senior finds out he

a movement for education, not incarceration. a movement for jobs, not jails. a movement to end all these forms of legal discrimination against people, discrimination that denies them basic human rights to work, to shelter and to food. now, what must we do to begin this movement? well, first i believe we've got to begin by telling the truth, the whole truth. we've got to be willing to admit out loud that we as a nation have managed to recreate a caste-like system in this country. we've got to be willing to tell this truth in our schools, in our churches, in our places of worship, behind bars and in reentry centers. we've got to be willing to tell this truth so that a great awakening to the reality of what has occurred can come to pass. because the reality is that this new caste-like system, it doesn't come with signs. there are no whites-only signs anymore, there are no signs alerting us to the existence of the system of mass incarceration. and prisons today, they are out of sight and out of mind. often hundreds of miles away from communities and families that

while i was incarcerated and i made the choice while i was in there that i wasn't going to disappear,ck. i wondered, well, how can i share my story and my experience with young people, older people alike, on how to make better decisions. i went through all the different scenarios. 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 your actions and that's how it came babt. 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. the day i had to tell her, it just broke my heart. and she pulled the picture off the wall, and i didn't know what to say. i said people make mistakes. i was so mad at you. i'm so happy to see you today. it really fills my heart, the fact that you get you put yourself out there and you're real, and we can feel your pain. i'm sitting here crying. >> 50 years from now when you fin

according to one study unions in which one partner is incarcerated are less likely to end in divorcea conventional marriage. >> it gives me the hope, and the love. she is a friend. i'm a friend. and you know we just got married so to show our love for each other. >>> next on "lockup raw prison love" a rare night of physical intimacy for a convict and his wife. >>> later. >> you can hear people talk about, she got this and she is going to die for the crime she committed. >> identical twins divided by death row. [ dog ] you know, i just don't think i should have to wait for it! who do you think i am, quicken loans? ♪ at quicken loans, we won't make you wait for it. our efficient, online system allows us to get you through your home loan process fast. which means you'll never have to beg for a quick closing. one more way quicken loans is engineered to amaze. bonkers, look at me when i'm talking to you. i honestly loved smoking, and i honestly didn't think i would ever quit. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke

one in every one hundred six white males aged eighteen or over is incarcerated this panic males that number is one in thirty six and one in fifteen black males over eighteen is currently in jail. between one thousand nine hundred seven and two thousand and seven state spending on incarceration related expenses increased one hundred twenty seven percent while spending on higher education during that same period rose a mere twenty percent is it that much more profitable jail or population than it is to educate and. i think that's a great reason and again their head lock arms now you know i take me to tell you that i continue to do this i read about it joe you know watch you continue to tell my brother and my sister and my mom or anybody else that looks like me and i rest i think it should be a scary thing not just for those who own you know people of color minority can but out of us know that we have to live in a society like that. ok so depending on your geographic location your everyday reality may reflect the police state we live in two larger or smaller degrees but at least you hav