any system that incarcerates people at the rate that we do in our country and our state -- the implications 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 ha

any system that incarcerates people at the rate that we do in our country and our state -- the implications 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 h

any system that incarcerates people at the rate that we do in our country and our state -- the implications that this has had in minority communities,

provide counsel a critical part of the proceedings, we think we can save money by avoiding incarcerating people unnecessarily. they are not a threat to themselves or public safety. >> both the house and senate passed emergency legislation to repeal the court decision. you can stay on top of what's going on in indianapolis and the laws that could affect you. you can check out the daily session previews with david collins on our web site, wbaltv.com. "session 2012." >> baltimore mayor stephanie rawlings blake has issued an executive order to make sure that victims and witnesses deals they've talking to police regardless of immigration status. barry simms as live downtown with more details. >> this is all about dignity and respect. she wants to make sure that everyone can come forward and feel like they can talk to police and tell them what has happened. >> it's just a clarification of our current policy, not to inquire about the citizenship of individuals, particularly of those calling for help. >> baltimore mayor stephanie rawlings blake hopes to reduce fear. she says the immigration debate nati

very strange this company that that there exists a business where you can make a lot of money incarcerating people keeping people in cages and i'm not like squeamish i understand that we have prisons in society back you know they have to be there and some people ought to be in prison and so i you know i'm not some idealist that would like to see prisons abolished or anything but it still seems strange to me so then when you see these presentations of these investment pitches they're basically talk about the business like any other business i mean it's like you know coca-cola would advertise that even in a downturn or pace company might advertise that in the downturn people still have to buy to pay so it's a good very special purpose industry then you have this company saying even in a downturn the private prison business never stops blooming as if it's just this totally normal business and it obviously isn't and then i think of beyond that part of that disturbs me is the incentives for the prison industry to lobby for more incarceration you know. the idea that it becomes in their best interest to

the enabling of high-tech -- to enable dictatorship to find, apprehend and incarcerate people of faith, the christians, the wig egers and to destroy dissident movements throughout the world calls out for this legislation so i hope to have this bill out of committee shortly so i thank you for bringing that up. i'd like to thank our distinguished witnesses aagain and without further a' dieu, the hearing is adjourned. >>> on "washington journal" tomorrow morning, the president of the business round table, john engler, looks at the president's speech to top ceos and tom zeller looks at america's poor and middle class and andrew weiss will discuss how the election of russian president vladimir putin will affect elections between the u.s. and russia. "washington journal" is live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >>> the conference continues tomorrow, live coverage starting at 8:35 a.m. eastern here on c-span3. >> there's a real anxiety within a substantial part of black america when confronting black americans who are successful in the wider society because there's this anxiety that

and we think we can save money by avoiding incarcerating people unnecessarily. people are not a threat to themselves or public safety. >> as everyone records a vote -- >> both the house and senate passed the emergency legislation. however the house version does not include the citation version. >> opponents of the state's death penalty brought an international expert to help lobby for their cause. sister helen prejean borough "dead man walking." >> in 1989 she they became a speerlttwal advisor in new orleans. she wrote a best seller. "dead man walking" is based on it. >> it is the thing about a wave hitting the shore. it is the thing about the way social change comes in this country, and it is happening around the death penalty. we see the diminishment across the nation in the practice of the death penalty. >> legislation to repeal maryland's death penalty and provide a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole is at the statehouse. to strengthen services provided to families of murder victims. >> the death penalty does not do anything to help victims' fa

now we think we can save money by avoiding incarcerating people unnecessarily. people who are not a threat to themselves, not a threat to public safety. >> both the house and senate passed the emergency legislation. however the house version does not include the citation option. a conference committee will be named to hammer out a compromise. >> opponents to the state's death penalty brought in a national expert to help lobby for their cause. sister helen prejean wrote a book which was later made into the movie "dead man walking." >> sister helen prejean is a tireless opponent of the death penalty. it is her life. in 1981, she began a prison ministry? new orleans. she became a spiritual advisor to death-row inmates. she wrote a best seller and the movie "dead man walking" is based on it. susan sarandon played the role of sister prejean. >> it is the way about the way the social change comes about in the world. >> legislation to pre repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parol is in a bill at the statehouse. it would also strengthen se

as chairman scott said, we incarcerate more people than any other country on earth. and it's way too many and i celebrate what we're doing here today. i close with this observation. hill harper was late coming to this forum. and attorneys bobby vasser and i were trying to determine whether we should issue a warrant or a subpoena to bring him here one way or the other. i'm glad we don't have to do that now. and i thank you, chairman scott. >> thank you, mr. conyers. now for equal time, we recognize hill harper. >> thank you, chairman. i was wearing my hoody and i got stopped on the way. you know, it's an honor to appear and speak on behalf of the youth promise act. when we talk about educational opportunities, mentoring, intervention, and all types of wrap around services for our youth, i'm the founder of a foundation called the man nest your des in addition. we seek to serve underprivileged youth in this country. we hope to empower them to give them access to college skills, academic programming, and also pass along lessons i learned coming out of the public school s

. >> we think we can save money by avoiding incarcerating people unnecessarily. >> the house version does not include the citation option. a conference committee will be made to hammer out a compromise. >> opponents of the state's death penalty brought in a national expert to help lobby for her cause. sister helen prajon which later inspired the book "dead man walking." david collins has that story. >> sister helen prajon is a tireless opponent of the death penalty. she became a spiritual advisor to a louisiana death row inmate and a witness to six state discussions. she wrote a best seller and the movie "dead man walking" is based on it. >> it is a thing about a wave hitting the shore. it is a thing about social change comes in the country and it is happening around the death penalty. we see the diminishment across the nation in the practice of the death penalty. >> legislation to repeal maryland's death penalty and instill life without parol is in a bill at the statehouse. it is also to strengthen services victims. >> the death penalty doesn't do anything to help victim's families.

we think we can save money by avoiding incarcerating people unnecessarily. they're not a threat to themselves or public safety. >> would anyone like to change their vote? >> the boat passed emergency legislation to reverse the court decision but added the citation option which will have to be worked out with the house. >> we are not on the same page, but we're close. we have been talking about this sense session started. >> a conference committee worked out the differences will be named soon. it is considered emergency because of the court's deadline to provide a public defender. live from annapolis, but david collins, wbal light and tv 11 news. >> for working parents, reliable day care is a requirement. >> how much the parents really not about who owns the place is supposed to keep your kids safe? >> some of the people watching your kids could have a criminal record. what you need to know about child care coming up. >> super tuesday. i'm nikole killion in washington with more on the final weekend of campaigning. find out how they are spending at coming up.

engage the city and county in supporting us and looking at ways to move away from the over incarceration of people and look at ways to reform their behavior. the efforts we have undertaken when george was appointed to the position -- jeff asked him to come to the public defender's office to have a question and answer session, which he did, and i attended with him. we are told that was the first time that had ever happened, and we reciprocated by asking jeff to meet with the district attorneys in our office. we have begun a dialogue that both sides think is very healthy. we have identified a number of issues that we think require further exploration, so we are creating working group's staff by the people from the d.a.'s office and the public defender's office to look at improving things like discovery, which is an important issue, making sure that we have reciprocal discovery and that it is transparent and complete. 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 solut

much of our public policy has been based on the idea that if you pass harsher laws, incarcerate more people, that will drive down the crime rate. i can tell you unequivocally, there is no research that supports that and not in the area of juvenile justice. my agency has been tracking this for 15 years. as the state of california has been essentially eliminating its youth correctional system, what we used to call the california youth authority, we call the division of juvenile justice in our system -- our system of 11 institutions, there are three. we have gone from 10,000 kids in cursor did to 1000 today. it is continuing to drop and the governor is pushing for the proposal to close it completely. take as from a 19th century system hopefully into a 21st century system. specific to hear, san francisco is leading that trend. roughly in the 1990's, the san francisco juvenile justice system was the subject of harsh criticism. it was two decades of harsh criticism for its monolithic practice that week -- kids would get arrested, police officers would take them into the youth guidance center and

if people are incarcerated -- first of all, we want the bad guys and gals off the street. so we want you to prosecute and incarcerate particularly where there are people who constitute a danger to our country or to our communities. we -- i don't know if we can sustain this growth. and then i'm concerned about once we put them in, it's a resolving door and we keep expanding their prisons with the same people. they keep coming back. could you elaborate on your department's needs, but is there any recommendations you'd have to begin to contain the prison population? are we federalizing too many crimes? is recidivism the problem? again, safe streets, but this is really an ever-increasing part of our appropriations. >> i think there are a whole variety of reasons why we see the prison population expanding. we now have about 215,000 or so people in the federal system. that number goes up every year. it is for that reason that we consistently come back to this committee asking for additional funds for b.o.p. i think there are a variety of reasons you see people coming into the sy

. >> well, part of the process is to begin changing a system that was primarily focused on incarcerating peoplevolved in educational vocational programs, what we were not doing was linking them with community resources. >> lieutenant mike parker supervises the community transition unit, which assists inmates in getting jobs and finding a place to live after jail. >> in the first few minutes when somebody gets out of jail i hear from inmates, social workers, homeless shelter people, you name it. the first few minutes when they leave the jail is the most pivotal. >> we are here to try to assist you in some housing, whatever you need, transportation, california i.d., job developer. are there any special needs right now? >> yes. >> like what? >> i need housing, and i need employment. >> okay, then. >> for curtis calloway, the community transition program couldn't have come at a better time. >> because i need help. that's basically it. no matter how i may speak or sound, i need help. that's what it is. you know, because i'm not a bad guy, you know. i'm a good guy. but it's just a simple fact. one ti

that if you just do the back arithmetic and look at a 2200 incarceration rate when 500 and above is counter productive and take the 1700 peoplethat should not be in jail, their counter productive incarceration level and look at the amount of money times $30,000 you are spending. 30,000 children out of 100,000 people and do the back of the envelope arithmetic and you will notice that if you spent the money you are wasting on counter productive incarceration you could be spending $5,000 per child every year with the wasted counter productive incarceration. ten states, you go through the same arithmetic and you find they are wasting about $10,000 per at risk child per year. so obviously we are spending the money now and it is question not of whether we can afford it but how we spend the money that we are spending. the youth promise act has gathered the support of over 250 national state and local organizations. many cities have passed resolutions endorsing it including los angeles, san francisco, santa fe, new mexico, new york, pittsburgh, pennsylvania and several cities in virginia. the u.s. conference of mayors at the 77th ann

industrialized/civilized nations in the world have a limit of the amount of time they keep people incarcerated, even if you're talking about people that, you know, life in prison, been in prison over 30 years, and another who's been in exile, why not have a conversation about what happened in terms of the black liberation movement and what was going on and what we have to do to move forward and why people take those stands, why those things happen, and have truth in reconciliation hearings and move forward. >> okay, last two questions up front. >> i know this brother's been there for awhile. >> which one? >> that one. okay, we'll add one more. >> i'm a temple university student, double media, film media arts and african-american studies. my intentions are to tell stories that people, maybe they don't want to hear or are too hard to hear. do you have any advice for somebody like myself? >> yeah, be passionate about the stories. link up with your classmates and other folks in the community or maybe people that you can link up that want to tell similar stories and understand that they will get ma

loss of national identity, especially in the people of african-american descent community, the loss of national identity has contributed to the high incarceration rate, and what remedies are being taken to help rectify that? because in our organization, and i'm a member of the morris science of america which was established in 1913 to help teach people of african-american descent to teach us our true national identity, we found since 1865, at the end of the institution of slavery, when our people were emancipated, from 1865 to 1925, which is what we call a period of open slavery and during the reconstruction system, that the justice system, the correctional system was put into place based on the act of our people, based on the actions of our people going for uplifting for themselves. and it seemed that every step that we took to uplift ourselves, a law was made to hinter that. so what and how much energy and effort is being put into correcting that and helping to uplift our people in the communities around the nation? thank you. >> one of the things we're doing research on is the building of new identities in former gang members, which include

fashions come civilized nations in the world have a limit of the amount of time people to keep people incarcerated even if you are talking about people whose life imprisonment has been in prison over 40 years and who has been in exile. why can't we have a conversation about what was happening in terms of the black liberation movement and what was going on and we need to move forward why people would take those stands, why those what happened and have truth and reconciliation hearings and move forward. >> the last two questions up front. >> we will add one more. >> good morning. i am a double major in african-american studies. my intentions are to tell people maybe what they don't want to hear or are too hard to hear to read to you have any advice for someone like myself? >> be passionate about those stories, and to link up with your classmates and other folks in the community or the chief that you can link up that want to tell similar stories and understand they will get me if you make them. hollywood is just a bank now and they want people to do all the work and bring it to them so i am urging th