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- [00:02]
Megan
Hi, I'm Megan and I've got a new podcast I think you're going to love. It's called Confessions of a Female Founder, a show where I chat with female entrepreneurs and friends about the sleepless nights, the lessons learned, and the laser focus that got them to where they are today. And through it all, I'm building a business of my own and getting all sorts of practical advice along the way that I'm so excited to share with you. Confessions of a Female Founder is out now. Listen wherever you get your podcast.
- [00:37]
David Duchovny
Hi everyone, I'm David Duchovny. Join me on my podcast Fail Better where we use failure as a lens to reflect on the past and analyze the current moment. I speak with makers and performers like Rob Lowe, Rosie o' Donnell and Kenya Barris, as well as thinkers like Kara Swisher and Nate Silver to understand how both personal setbacks and larger forces impact our world. Listen to Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:08]
Lemonada
Lemonada.
- [01:13]
Megan
This is a sponsored episode by the Jest Trust, a philanthropic venture that is 100% dedicated to power and criminal justice reform state by state and across the country. Visit thejestrust.org to learn more.
- [01:29]
Maggie Croucher
Hi everybody. I'm so honored to welcome you all to today's timely and inspiring conversation why We Can't Incarcerate Our Way to Public safety. My name is Maggie Croucher and I'm a Director of Partnerships at Lemonada Media. I have spent most of my career in education, nonprofits and policy. I have to say, all too often we talk about so many of the challenges in our society but don't spend enough, if any, time on the solutions and incredible change makers on the ground making a real impact. At Lemonada, we want to change that. We are an audio first network that creates podcasts that makes hard things a little easier tackling seemingly intractable issues head on through mainstream storytelling. We do this with edge, empathy, equity and solutions in mind. We share the unfiltered version of the human experience and make podcasts that make life suck less. Lemonada is one of the fastest growing podcast networks in the US and globally. Our slate includes 28 shows and will grow to over 30 by the end of the year. Now today we are thrilled to be partnering with the Just Trust to bring you this forum. Lemonada and the Just Trust care deeply about criminal justice and solutions to the unjust systems that disproportionately impact communities of color and low income communities. Lemonada is grateful to have the Just Trust support and involvement in two of our Podcasts Call for Help and the Untold Story. Both La Manada and the Just Trust are working to create platforms that provide resources to promote community based solutions. Now, there has been a lot of media coverage around recent spikes in violent crime. A lot. Even though overall crime rates are at historic lows, many people are feeling unsafe and want solutions. Most people also want to tackle our country's incarceration crisis while addressing public safety concerns. As it turns out, these things go hand in hand. At today's special event, we will explore why we can't incarcerate our way to public safety. We hear from executive directors of three leading criminal justice reform advocacy organizations. A former police lieutenant, a former federal prosecutor, and a social worker focused on drug law reform about the intersection of safety and criminal justice reform. In this moment, I'm so very pleased to introduce you to our incredible moderator and panelists who will push your thinking, inspire you, display radical empathy, and leave you with concrete solutions. First, let me introduce and welcome to the Livestream our moderator for today, Ana Zamora. Ana is the founder and CEO of the Just Trust, a funder that is 100% dedicated to advancing criminal justice reform state by state and across the country. Ana has spent over a decade in the field working to advance and protect critical ballot measures, educating the public about the need for reform and the role of elected officials, and building philanthropic programs to support criminal justice reform advocacy. Now, I'm also pleased to introduce you to our three esteemed panelists and welcome them to the Livestream. We are honored to be joined by leaders from leading criminal justice reform advocacy organizations focused on the intersection of safety and criminal justice reform. Our panelists are Cassandra Frederick, the Executive Director of Drug Policy Alliance, Brett Tolman, the Executive Director of Right on crime, and Lt. Diane Goldstein, executive Director of Law Enforcement Action Partnership. Thanks again for being here today. Over to you, Ana.
- [05:04]
Megan
Thanks, Maggie. And thanks for that wonderful introduction and kind of setting the stage for what is going to be a really exciting and timely conversation today. I just want to take a second to thank Lemonada Media for bringing important issues like criminal justice reform to audiences like the one tuning in right now. Everyone, I am super excited for this. You know, the criminal justice reform field, which I am proud to be a part of, is full of incredible leaders from all different walks of life who come to this issue and have dedicated their lives to it for a variety of different reasons. And today we are very lucky to have three criminal justice reform advocacy experts who lead three of the most impactful and important organizations in the field. But you Three on the call here or the zoom or whatever this is. You all have very different paths that brought you to this place today. And I'd love to start this conversation hearing from each of you about how your past work really informed your present work. And also, please feel free to brag about the work that your organizations do while you, while you, while you go for it. So I think, Diane, can we start with you for this one?
- [06:20]
Diane Goldstein
Absolutely. My name is Diane Goldstein, and I am so honored and humbled to be here with really some esteemed colleagues that I've known and done work with probably going back since the start of my advocacy. Thank you, Lemonada, for hosting us. I'm a retired lieutenant from Redondo Beach Police Department in California. And I spent almost 22 years in law enforcement in a variety of operational assignments, including gangs and running a narcotics team, as well as being the first female lieutenant in our agency, where I was a division commander of three divisions. And it wasn't just my professional life that brought me to this point, but it was also the intersection with my brother's bipolar and substance use disorder. My brother passed in 2007 from a poly drug overdose in New Orleans. And what I saw with his history, because he was also just as impacted, is he had 20 plus years of being a person in recovery until he lost access to his insurance and his job and his psychotropic meds and he started self medicating. And at that time he became homeless and moved into my house. And without knowing what harm reduction was at that point in time is, I started engaging in both the criminal justice system as his advocate and working with him in order to try to mitigate the harms of his substance use disorder. In 2010, just as an interesting point in time, in California, there was the Prop 19 campaign going on that although it didn't pass, it brought me to this work because I attended a debate between Judge Jim Gray of LEAP and an active duty police chief in Orange County, California, where I lived back then. And I went up and introduced myself because Judge Gray made perfect sense relative to the harms of drug policy, because I'd seen it in my work in law enforcement, and I saw it in the failure of the system to identify the issues relative to my brother, which resulted in his death. And so I came to Law Enforcement Action partnership back in 2010, when we were a single, focused policy organization that really was an outlier. At that time, we were the cops that wanted to blow the war on drugs up. People were like, like their heads would explode when we would say, yes, we need to end our drug control strategies because they're a complete and abject failure, and we've over police communities of color. And from my personal experience, I can say absolutely. You know, I go back and I look at the work that we did, and at the time, I think we were so insulated, we thought what we were doing was right, and then pulled back from it and recognized so many of the harmful interventions that law enforcement and the criminal justice have that impacts our societies in ways that we can't recover. So the Law Enforcement Action Partnership is a nonprofit organization that's made up of current, former retired criminal justice professionals. We have everything from police chiefs to sitting judges to people who are currently working in the White House and also as the head of Customs and Border Enforcement. So we can see our influence has grown dramatically at this point relative to how do we transform policing. We have over. I think it's close to 300 speakers with. With a small staff that works both on international and domestic issues. And so our pillars include things like mass incarceration, smart on crime policies. I won't take that away from you, Brett, because you guys are such a great partner with that. And it's true. So our organization works to promote justice and smart public safety solutions.
- [10:34]
Megan
Thanks, Diane. And thanks for sharing a little bit about how your professional life and your personal life have really intersected and brought you to become one of the leading criminal justice advocates. You talked about the war on drugs, or you hinted at the war on drugs, which I think is the perfect segue to Cassandra. Cassandra, can you talk about how your past informed your present?
- [10:54]
Lemonada
Yeah, thanks, Anna. And thank you, Diane. And just want to acknowledge that I'm sorry about your brother. I think oftentimes when we talk about our personal life, I just want to acknowledge that that is a real thing. So I'm really excited to be here and thank Lemonada and just trust for inviting me. My name is Cassandra Frederic. I use she her pronouns. And I'm currently the executive director of the Drug Policy alliance, which I've been at for the last 13 years, believe it or not. And part of that is because I was in a social work program. So I am born and raised in New York. I'm first generation Haitian, and I grew up in New York city in the 90s. And so I have a very personal experience of understanding when crime was very high and what it was like to be a young person growing up during that time with parents who are navigating, being in a new country, working and trying to raise two children as working, poor family. And I think for the most part, besides the stuff that I watched on tv, I think I learned about violence in my community and could name the people that had been killed by law enforcement before I knew my state capitals. So I remember understanding, like, the first killing of Anthony Baez, who was choked by NYPD in 94. And I was in second grade. And I remember that my school, which was mostly black and Latino, having to unpack that and really try to understand, like, how do we keep ourselves safe? What are the strategies? Like, why is it that our parents want us to be inside when it's dark, why we shouldn't take candy from strangers, why certain family members of mine couldn't pick me up from school. And my parents had to be really clear about that with the school administrators. All those things kind of shaped a little bit of my understanding. But it wasn't really until college, when I started doing work around union organizing and community organizing, social work, school, being a social worker in a middle school in Hunts Point, and being a woman's counselor at a domestic violence clinic, that I started realizing that the conversation about public safety was about a lack of options and about how people don't have options to make different choices, and that sometimes people make the choices that seem most acute to them in the moment. And that I wasn't always going to agree with the choices that people made, but it didn't preclude me from seeing them as human beings. And so I think that that kind of personal transformation and work around how do I still love people I disagree with, really has helped me in doing my work at Drug Policy alliance, which is national organization that has been working to end the criminalization of drugs. And really part of that conversation is because we find that criminalization and things like mass incarceration actually make things more dangerous and harder to manage and gives us less options. And so that is the organization that I've been working on. I've been at the organization for 13 years, like I said before, and most of my work was in my hometown of New York. And so I've had the great honor and privilege of I'm trying to shape the place that I live and also give more people different options so they can make better choices.
- [14:40]
Megan
Thanks, Cassandra. And we're definitely going to dig in more about the war on drugs later in the conversation. But, Brett, can you share with the folks tuning in about who you are and how you got to this place?
- [14:52]
David Duchovny
Sure. Thanks, Anna. I apologize for my voice. I'm getting over A cold that nearly had me down and out. But I'm up and about.
- [15:01]
Megan
Glad you're back.
- [15:02]
David Duchovny
Thank. So for 25 years I've worked in the criminal justice system. I became a federal prosecutor because I thought my mission in life would be to put bad guys in prison so that they wouldn't hurt other people. And you know, I'm very proud of a lot of the work that I did as a prosecutor. And it culminated in the final case I prosecuted was the kidnapper of Elizabeth Smart. That was an individual that I know would harm children and would continue to harm children. And so I'm grateful that I was able to prosecute that case. But along the way, I learned that the criminal justice system has many aspects that are broken. And there has been a one sort of one solution that has been touted as the only solution by legislators, by governors, by others across this country. And that is their go to when they are worried about crime is to simply pass more laws that outlaw more things and then to lengthen the sentences of those crimes. The theory being that if lengthen the time that someone is incarcerated, then you lower the crime rate. Well, I've now spent 15 years working as an advocate because I believed that data and research should be driving and best policies that we can learn from other states where they had the guts and the will to try something different was going to be important. And so I accepted the position as the executive director of Right on Crime. And I never thought I would do something like this, but I can tell you I'm most proud of this organization and the team and the people and what we're doing. We are engaging with conservatives to say, hey, let's identify what we can change in the criminal justice system and let's never compromise public safety and let's never forget people who are victims of crimes. But let's be honest about this. There are so many aspects of the criminal justice system that if we change, we will lower the crime rate. And that's being tough on crime. That is the way that we actually create safety in our communities. And I've observed all kinds of unbelievable decision making in the criminal justice system by those who have power, that have abused that power. And I find though, when you talk to individuals in our communities, one in three people have a criminal history or a criminal record in this country and it's unacceptable. And why it's unacceptable is because it tells you that when recidivism rates get to 60 to 70%, we're actually failing in one of the most important areas that the government is supposed to be ensuring confidence in. So if we're failing, then we better have both those on the left and the right engaged in this to make changes that are going to be meaningful. And so that's why I'm here and I'm passionate about it. And I'll do this until I've got no more energy in my body body to work on it.
- [18:07]
Megan
Great. Well, we need, we need all of you. And I feel like there's a joke here, like what happens when a police officer, a prosecutor and a social worker walk into a bar. Thank you all so much. This is everybody that's listening in. We are with the experts here today. These are the folks you should be listening to when it comes to criminal justice reform, safety, all the things.
- [18:37]
Lemonada
Hey, I'm Reshma Sajani, founder of Girls who Code and Moms First. I consider myself a pretty successful adult woman. So why is it that in midlife as I'm about to turn 50, I feel so stuck? Join me as I try to find the answer on my so called midlife from Lemonada Media. I talk to experts and extraordinary guests about divorce, exercise, menopause, sex, drugs and more to understand what we're going through and how to make the most of it. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, I'm.
- [19:06]
David Duchovny
Hasan Minhaj and I have been lying to you.
- [19:09]
Megan
I only pretended to be a comedian so I could trick important people into coming on my podcast.
- [19:13]
David Duchovny
Hasan Minhaj doesn't know to ask them the tough questions that real journalists are.
- [19:17]
Megan
Way too afraid to ask.
- [19:19]
David Duchovny
People like Senator Elizabeth Warren, Is America too dumb for democracy? Outrageous parenting outrage expert Dr. Becky, how do you skip consequences without raising a psychopath?
- [19:31]
Megan
It's a good question.
- [19:32]
David Duchovny
Listen to Hasan Minhaj doesn't know from Lemonada Media. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [19:46]
Megan
This is a really important time right now to be talking about public safety and the role of criminal justice reform in the United States. As Maggie said at the outset, if anyone has been reading the news lately, you've probably noticed a lot of scary headlines about upticks in crime, about violence, about people feeling unsafe walking home, and more importantly, people are hungry for solutions. We're seeing a lot of people also largely in the political space really using this moment as an opportunity to return to tough on crime rhetoric and tough on crime policies that advocate for locking up more for longer, all in the name of public safety. But if you know anything about this issue, and we are here with folks who do, you know that we can't incarcerate our way to public safety. As Brett and others have said, if we could, the United States would be the safest country in the world. We are not the safest country in the world. And frankly, I certainly believe that our criminal justice system just doesn't live up to its promise. It doesn't make communities safer. It definitely doesn't help survivors heal. It doesn't hold accountable and help them make different choices. And yet we pour so much money and effort into maintaining our system of mass criminalization and mass incarceration. So I'd like to hear from each of you about this disconnect, specifically talk a little bit more about this current moment we are in and why some are urging for a return to tough on crime and a doubling down on incarceration. Why is this approach more harmful to public safety in the short term and the long? Cassandra, would you mind kicking us off in this conversation?
- [21:34]
Lemonada
Sure. Thanks for naming me.
- [21:37]
Megan
I definitely wasn't going to go first.
- [21:39]
Lemonada
I think one of the things that's so interesting about this conversation is that for the people that do think that they can incarcerate their way to public safety, they would have these same three groups of people in that space. They would have a prosecutor, they would have a police chief, and they would have a social worker saying, this is why we need to use the criminal justice system, so that we can get safer. The police on the streets, the prosecutor doing it, and the social worker trying to make the criminal justice system a little gentler, a little kinder, but still focusing on accountability and people centered. And I think part of that disconnect is like, we're all three fields where there's a broad spectrum about what our fields think criminal justice reform is. So speaking from my perspective as a social worker, especially in the last two summers, you know, there's been so much conversation about the role that helping professions and social workers can play in the conversation of the criminal justice system and the idea that social workers should be a part of the criminal justice system and provide support to law enforcement, or there should be more helping court where people are going into the court system, and it's like either me or it's either Brett, right? It's like you either go with me or you go with Brett, and then that's how we get reform. And for me, I think that that is a false choice. We have an opportunity here to really do as Brett says, which is change the way that we're thinking about what we're trying to get to. When I think about criminal justice reform, for me, that means how do we prevent harm in the first place? How do we disincentivize people making choices that hurt other people? And that, for me, also means that what are the kinds of things that create the circumstances, that make it easy for people to make the choices that we don't want them to make? And I think that those kinds of things make our communities less safe. So when we're looking at the rate of folks that are experiencing homelessness, or the amount of people that don't have access to supports around mental health, or the amount of people that don't have access to treatment, or the amount of people that don't have basic conflict resolution skills, that, to me, is a failure of our community. Right. I think every time we have to deal with the criminal legal system to address interpersonal conflict, it is a failure of our society. And how we've taught people how to communicate with each other, how to manage through conflict. And so when Brett says the recidivism rate being 60 to 70% shows our failure, I'm like, the fact that we have to call law enforcement to deal with neighbor quarrels is a failure. Right. And it means that the failure is going all the way back to all the other institutions that people met with before they got to the criminal legal system. And so for when I think about criminal justice reform, I'm thinking about how do we get to those systems to figure out how they're teaching people skills on how we interact with each other, and how do we have a conversation about what is our social contract and what is our definition of safety?
- [24:59]
Megan
Diane, I see you shaking your head a lot. Do you want to jump in here and build on what Cassandra said? And also just why is returning to tough on crime going to put us in a worse off place in terms of public safety?
- [25:16]
Diane Goldstein
So I think, Cassandra, the segue into critically, some of the most important things relative to policing in particular, is that what communities don't understand is how harmful criminal justice interventions are, and that law enforcement needs to rework its oath, its ethical duties, to include a Hippocratic oath to do the least harm.
- [25:50]
Megan
Right.
- [25:51]
Diane Goldstein
And so building on what Cassandra says is, you know, there's a lot of blame on law enforcement leaders in the criminal justice system. And I'm going to be very clear about that. I'm not here saying that we aren't above accountability and transparency, which is everything. What our organization works towards is how do we transform policing means that we need to be more inclusive of the community, and we're not. And because in some aspects, it's the political issues. We're reverting back to tough on crime because that's all politicians seem to think works and they don't understand that they're.
- [26:33]
Lemonada
Part of the problem.
- [26:35]
Diane Goldstein
Look, law enforcement doesn't fund itself. I believe that budgets are moral documents. Right. Let's start talking about how politicians have siloed law enforcement off from rest of the systems that are needed in order to create health and safety, public safety. And my goal as the executive director of my organization is to change the paradigm of what public safety means. It's about community health and safety and most importantly, who's responsible for it. It's a collaboration. It is not a top down, which is exactly how it's being run right now. It's being run by prosecutors and by judges and by cops who think that they know and that they don't need input from their constituents and the people that they serve. And so for me, words matter. You know, I got hired under the attribute of being a peace officer. Every authority across every state that I know doesn't describe cops as being police officers. We have policing authority, but first and foremost we're hired as peace officers. And that's a complete different connotation. Which is we also need to change the metrics of how we evaluate community health and safety. Right. Right now we turn people through a system because in some aspects, that's how law enforcement is gauged. On effectiveness on the number of arrests and not the quality. It's not on, you know, what we're solving, but how many people were taking off the streets. And frankly, I blame politicians because we don't fund systems that are more efficacious than the policing. Right. And we seem to be the first responders to policing poverties that are based on socioeconomic issues. And I like to point out, and I think this is really important with the social work aspect, if you look at social determinants of health inequities in communities that are marginalized, Appalachia communities of color, poverty is the driving factor in it. Instead of looking at how do we deal with the systemic issues relative to crime, we basically wait until they become so obvious and then we ask the cops to solve it with one tool. And we can't do it and we can't do without the help of our community. And we should not be responding as first responders. We should be using our resources judiciously to prevent harm to others. You know, we have to uplift and support victims and listen to their voices. But I will also tell you that I don't think all victims want this retribution.
- [29:45]
Megan
That's right.
- [29:46]
Diane Goldstein
When I talk to victims, they want accountability and they want people to be given the opportunities to change. And so we have to, you know, how do we balance out doing justice?
- [29:58]
Megan
That's absolutely right. I think that, you know, you said, Diane, that politicians are part of the problem here, but I don't look at it as who's part of the problem, but more that everybody has to be part of the solution. And we're going to talk about solutions here in a moment because I think that is such an important and often under discussed part of doing criminal justice reform work. But before we get there, I want to bring Brett into this tough on crime conversation because I think you have a unique kind of perspective that your organization has been talking about lately, as we've seen kind of the resurgence of tough on crime rhetoric and of course, tough on crime policy, which, as I mentioned, is all about locking up more people for longer. But how do you kind of think about tough on crime in this moment where there is an uptick in certain violent crimes and people are feeling unsafe and people do want solutions? How are you kind of wrapping your head around this moment?
- [30:56]
David Duchovny
Yeah, I find it fascinating that here we are again and we're hearing this tough on crime rhetoric. We're hearing it nationally, and that's really the most vocal you hear in Congress, very vocal voices that are elevated by social media and by the mainstream media to suggest that all of the ills that we are facing in our communities that have seen the rise in crime is a result of these criminal justice reforms. We hear it so much so that the phrase criminal justice reform has become a lightning rod, especially on the right. I find this to be, though, one of the most incredible opportunities for adults in the room and for those that are willing to actually talk about the system itself in specifics and about the substance. When I talk to leaders in conservative states and right on crime, right now we are in Florida, we are in West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi. We are in conservative states and we are gaining ground despite all of this narrative. And why are we. Because my, my focus is this. Do we have an obligation to hold the criminal justice system accountable or not? And if we do, do you, as conservatives want to be in the room helping, or do you want just the left controlling that? And the overwhelming response is, no, it should not be something that's driven exclusively by the right or exclusively by the left. It should be those that are willing to get in the room and say, hey, there is a rise in crime. What is the reason for it in these particular areas, and can we reduce crime in those areas? And let me tell you the answer. The answer is not the length of sentence. I have many cases in which I know for a fact the statute that was applied and the sentence they got was maybe 5, 10, 20 times longer than was necessary for the purposes of punishment or if there is any deterrence for deterrence. When I became a prosecutor on the very first thing my boss said to me was, hey, Brett, just so you know, you're not a social worker. You just go in there and you prosecute and put bad guys in jail. What I would learn over the decade as a federal prosecutor was written in the halls of justice in the Department of Justice. It says, the threefold mission of the Department of Justice is to deter crime, to punish the criminal, and to rehabilitate the incarcerated. And guess what? I never heard anything about it was the rehabilitative side. And I started to realize that we lengthened the sentence, we put them away for a very long period of time, and 95% of them are going to get out, out. And yet we have done very little to help them on the front end or on the back end or while they're incarcerated so that then they get out, they have an ability to get a job. They have the confidence to try to educate themselves, and they have the motivation to do so. We've done very little as a society in doing that. And that's where I think the failure is. And that's where I hear conservatives across the country say, hey, I want to hold the criminal justice system accountable. They all have family members that have been affected by it, and they all recognize that it is a growing, out of control issue in this country. So despite this narrative, nobody's going anywhere. Our champions are stepping up in the states and they're getting even more emboldened, and we're expanding into more states. So I think it's a time of opportunity.
- [34:53]
Megan
That's right. I love hearing that because sometimes it does feel a little scary. And, you know, it's. It's listening to the headlines and like I said earlier, walking, walking home at night, you know, these are real issues that people care about. And more and more and more, whether you are, you know, somebody who lives in an urban area or somebody who lives in a rural area, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, we can all come together and agree that we want and deserve safer communities. And to me, that's what criminal justice reform is. Ultimately, all about. It's also about working to, like you said, Brett, looking at evidence and data to support the safe reduction of incarceration and our over reliance on incarceration and law enforcement tools to solve all the problems. Like you said, Diane, so people want solutions. Literally, people across the country are hungry for solutions. I'd like to turn the conversation to solutions right now. But before we do that, I just want to reach out to everybody who might be listening live right now and encourage you to submit questions to this incredible group of panelists on the chat. Those will somehow magically get to me, but please take a moment and do that, and I will try to get to questions that come my way. But now, solutions. We've been saying for the last half hour or so that criminalization, incarceration, punishment don't actually lead to safer communities. We have decades of evidence to show that, but what does? So I think one of the things that we struggle with is we. There isn't a robust narrative in this country of if not crime, punishment, excuse me, and incarceration, then what. What are the things that we should be lifting up as real solutions to increase safety in our communities? I'd love each of you to kind of lift up one of those solutions. It can be an actual program that you know about. It can be a. A law change. You know, changing the law is really important part of criminal justice reform. But I'd love each of you to kind of plant into the minds of the audience listening in, what are some of the actual solutions that you would like to see kind of scaled across the country or come to a community nearest you? I don't know who. If somebody wants to start, I might call on Diane to start, if that's okay.
- [37:25]
Diane Goldstein
Sure. You know, it's so interesting. I think one of the most important things relative to policing is we need to reduce the entry, because law enforcement is the entry into the criminal justice system, whether you're talking school to prison pipeline. And I was a school resource officer, and I did a really good job of trying to prevent kids from getting there. But federal policies back then were like, oh, if drugs are involved, you're going. Right? So one of the solutions that my organization has been working on in the last year and a half is a community response program, which basically is we are doing assessments of municipalities who engage with us, who say we believe that the footprint of policing is too large, and we don't think our cops should be responding to all these calls. So what can we do? And so we're tailoring Solutions to municipalities based on resources that they have access to. Because community responders or co responder models are not going to work if you don't have the resources in the community initially. Which is back to the funding mechanisms relative to budgets and why it's really important to have this conversation with legislators and people who control the purse springs.
- [38:51]
Megan
Right.
- [38:52]
Diane Goldstein
And so community responder programs include models that are having mental health responders be the first response to someone who is in a mental health cris or someone who is experiencing a drug overdose or someone who needs mediation. Right. To Cassandra's point, why don't we have mediation set up within our communities to solve issues of barking dogs or neighborhood noise or other things that are kind of like the social order type of responses that normally we send cops and say, if you don't stop the noise, we're going to give you a ticket or you may go to jail. Because that's our only response. Right. And so this has been very, very successful. And we're starting to see several municipalities who are, after an assessment of their calls for service, have identified specific types of calls that maybe their cops shouldn't respond. And they're hiring people from within the community to go out, in fact be peacekeepers and then leaving law enforcement to do the job that they should be doing, which is strategic policing. Right. If hotspot policing can be done in a constitutionally sound manner, I mean, I think that there are things that we can do that saves the interventions of law enforcement for those most responsible for harming the communities. But again, I would rather see us also fund a lot of different programs so we don't have to get to that point. So again, back to law enforcement should be the last responder to a barking dog call. Right. We shouldn't be the first responder to that, but we are going to need to be first responders to crimes of violence or in progress crimes or rape investigations. And I think we have to ask the question of what do we want law enforcement to do? And around the issues of drug war policing, what we know is, you know, there's, there's a distinct correlation with crime clearance rates. We used to solve more murders, more rapes, more burglaries. All our crime clearance rates have been diverted because we're doing too much. So community responder models are great, co responder models are good. It's better than not having clinicians on site. It's better triaging and management of our resources and working towards what should cops do, and that's prevent harm to other people.
- [41:38]
Megan
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it sounds like there are a lot of solutions and importantly, a lot of other expertise that need to be brought into kind of the front end part of the system to help resolve conflict when it happens. And importantly, Diane, to make sure that we are utilizing law enforcement resources and expertise in the most impactful way where we need law enforcement to really focus their attention and that this requires thinking a little outside the box. It also requires funding. And so I think that's really important for everyone listening in to really fully understand.
- [42:26]
Maggie Croucher
Hi, I'm Erica Mahoney. You don't know me, but you know a version of my story because by now we've all felt the impact of senseless guns.
- [42:35]
David Duchovny
I think a stray bullet flew past me because I hear the.
- [42:39]
Lemonada
It was that horrible feeling of dread, something's wrong.
- [42:43]
Maggie Croucher
Four years ago, my dad was killed in a mass shooting. My podcast Senseless is about moving forward after the unthinkable Senseless. From Lemonada Media, premiering June 17th.
- [42:55]
Diane Goldstein
I'm Meredith Goldstein, host of the Boston.
- [42:58]
Megan
Globe's Love Letters podcast, which features real.
- [43:01]
Diane Goldstein
People from all over the place world telling stories about their relationship lives.
- [43:06]
Megan
This season we're talking about how to change for the better. I just remember thinking like, wow, this is what a healthy relationship looks and feels like.
- [43:14]
Lemonada
The reason why I'm getting emotional is.
- [43:16]
Diane Goldstein
I didn't want to leave you.
- [43:18]
Lemonada
I never thought I would be this way again.
- [43:20]
Megan
Join us at Love Letters wherever you get your podcasts. We have a question from the audience that is actually a kind of solutions focused too. And Brett, I might point to you for this. The question is kind of what roles should prisons play in this conversation? What should they look like? I think we can all agree that we want fewer people in prisons, but what should prisons be doing for the folks that maybe need to be in there for a little bit because they have actually committed real harm? What should that look like again to increase public safety on the other side?
- [44:06]
David Duchovny
Yeah, I think it's a great question. I would say I look at the criminal justice system in three parts. What happens prior to them being investigated and prosecuted and put into the system? And then what happens while they're in the system and then what happens after? If we could have a shift in culture and a shift in mentality at both the front, the incarceration side and at the reentry side, where they're actually thinking about how do we take an individual from acting out and being criminal to no longer doing that, to rehabilitation, to what is it? What can they do? It's surprising that prisons actually can have a much bigger role than they have. And we started it right on crime just recently working with the 4th Purpose Foundation, Josh Smith's 4th Purpose, and working with some of our experts at engaging leaders of correction who actually do want to see a reduction in recidivism among those that they incarcerate and have tremendous ideas on what they can change in the incarceration experience. Some of it's as simple as the manner in which the interactions occur, the respect that's given or not given in a facility. The use of first names in one facility, for example, changed the dynamic as opposed to the use of a number. Some of these things are best practices that you can look at and see, but you can have major impacts, such as a facility that starts to change. How, when an individual exits incarceration, do they help facilitate their ability to get a driver's license or an identification card so that they can then get a job? Are they doing any training on the exit? And some people look at that and say, well, people need to be punished. Well, let me give you a reality check. Being incarcerated and your freedom taken away is absolutely punishment.
- [46:15]
Megan
That's right.
- [46:15]
David Duchovny
But not everyone incarcerated is violent. And in fact, there's so many that are redeemable. I raise for you Matthew Charles and Alice Johnson, who here can't look at both of those individuals and say, wow, they have become forces for good and they're tremendous. Well, guess what? They're not just an isolated exception. Our prisons are full of incredible people that could give to this community, to their communities. But we have taken a position that no longer thinks about lowering recidivism and rehabilitation at each of those stages.
- [46:51]
Megan
That's right. I think it's really important for everybody to always remember that, that prisons in the United States are full of people, people that live there and people that work there. And what if our prison system, if we're just focusing on prisons right now, what if our prison system's goal was to help people rather than punish them and incapacitate them? That would be an insane paradigm shift. And again, I think the question is, would it lead in the short term and long term to safer communities, more opportunity, family, connection, all the things that so many people in this country actually care.
- [47:27]
David Duchovny
Yeah. And Anna, real quick, when they say when conservatives resist that, they usually come back with no. We just, we. We need to punish, and we need to punish them, and they need to know they did wrong. Well, they know all those things. But the predominant population in our Prisons are not in there for crimes of violence. People need to understand that that's the predominant population in our prisons in this country. Country, nonviolent offenders.
- [47:56]
Megan
Yeah. Well, that. That's a perfect segue to Cassandra, something I would like you to talk about. Speaking of, you know, folks who are entangled in the criminal justice system for nonviolent offenses, particularly drug use and drug possession, you work for the leading national organization that is calling out the war on drugs and working to decriminalize drugs in this country. I would love you to share what that work looks like, why it is, in fact, a solution that will improve public safety.
- [48:32]
Lemonada
What I would say is, you know, I think one of the ways that we can increase public safety in a solution is through decriminalizing drugs. And I know that sounds counterintuitive, but drug possession is the number one arrestable offense in this country. And so it is the entry point point into getting people to the police, into the criminal legal system, and people getting really ensnared in that system. That is really like taking. Taking up a lot of space and using a lot of resources. And I think that when we look at decriminalization as a strategy, I think people are like, that's very counterintuitive. Too tough on crime is because we're like, we want to make things less criminal by creating different solutions and options, right. And how do we get people off those patterns? So I think that we need both. Brett, who's talking about how do we reduce recidivism? And our job at Drug Policy alliance is how do we not get people there in the first place? And that means by also providing the resources that people need. Right? So, for example, one of the things that we've been working on is talking to different states and legislators about passing drug decriminalization bill, where we not only decriminalize drugs, but take the resources to put into building infrastructure for things like treatment, for things like housing, for things like mediation, for things like for family reunification. How do we have conversations and put resources into other systems that also punish people, like the child welfare system and giving parents that are using drugs that are getting caught up either with warrants or in family court, giving them the resources to actually understand how to parent and to move things forward. How do we. How are we removing some of the barriers that Brett was talking about around recidivism, which is like, how do we make sure that when people come out that they have access to housing or they have access to public benefits? Like, these are the things that create the circumstances where people commit harm because they feel like they don't have choices. And so for us, decriminalization is really about how do we remove.
- [50:40]
David Duchovny
Remove.
- [50:42]
Lemonada
The intervention of criminalization and create more options so that people have other things to reach for as opposed to harming other people. And so you'll see that in places like Oregon, for example, where they decriminalize the possession of drugs, and we see that arrest rates have plummeted, but we've also seen the movement of $302 million be dispersed in the state of Oregon, which is creating treatment and infrastructure in places they've never had it before. Right. And so how do we remove criminalization in order to make space for more options, which is what I started the conversation with in the first place.
- [51:21]
Megan
That's right. Thank you. Thank you for your work on that. It's been really exciting to see how Oregon. Oregon really has led the way in full drug decriminalization, and I'm really proud of that. My organization supported that effort and is supporting the implementation of that, which is a really important part of criminal justice reform is making sure that changes to the laws and all the things that you all have been talking about today are implemented correctly, that we are evaluating them and making sure they're leading to the safety outcomes that we all want. So we just have a couple of minutes left, and I feel like I want to go back to this idea of the current moment we're in the. Of tough on crime. You know, we have a midterm election coming up in a couple of weeks, and, you know, I think that there are folks just starting to pay attention to kind of what's on the ballot. And, you know, whether folks live in a more progressive jurisdiction or a mixed jurisdiction or a conservative jurisdiction, no matter how people kind of feel about the folks running for office in their local community, all the way up to, you know, the federal races. Can each of you just kind of leave the audience with some recommendations for how to proceed this election season when it comes to criminal justice reform? What should folks be looking out for in terms of the folks running that are going to appear on their ballot? And where should people question when they hear something? When should people question it? I just feel like this is a good moment to maybe give a little lay of the land as it comes to voting, maybe. Brett, can you kick us off?
- [53:06]
David Duchovny
Yeah, happy to. I think that people should be asking, and it needs to be a central part of any campaign that they're willing to hold the criminal justice system accountable. What I mean by that is, are they willing to help enact policy that will help rehabilitation, help them not get in the system, as Cassandra says at the beginning, or to adjust what we're asking our police officers to do? Will they look at prosecutors and their power and use of discretion? Will they take seriously the role that they have to hold the justice system accountable? Because they are the only ones that can do it. The public can't do it. And they need their elected officials to actually hold them accountable. So I would say make sure your candidate is willing to do that.
- [53:55]
Megan
Thanks, Brett. Diane, what would you urge voters to think about this election season?
- [53:59]
Diane Goldstein
You know, there used to be a campaign called Count the Cops. And I think we really need to count the cost of the criminal justice system. And I'm the, you know, my policing was in California and I keep up a lot of issues in California in particular, and I currently live in Las Vegas. And I'm a little frustrated by the political craziness of the political ads on the tough on crime issues because we're not counting the costs. You know, we're not asking about our policies relative to the sanctity of life. Right. Is our current criminal justice system upholding the sanctity of life, whether it's, you know, public safety, you know, whether it's the cops, you know, our communities, the people that, that are being killed or murdered? You know, let's talk about George Floyd. That was a defining moment for me in, in my advocacy career, as was Ferguson and other things. And so. So in California, it costs over $100,000 a year to keep a single person in our state prison system over $100,000 a year. And so when I look at counting the costs is why are we waiting until we're willing to throw someone's life away instead of investing in systems that.
- [55:28]
Megan
Support.
- [55:31]
Diane Goldstein
Community health and safety? And so I would suggest that journalists are part of the problem and can be part of the solution. Is the fentanyl overdose crisis. Oh my gosh, the commercials in Nevada relative to who's causing fentanyl overdose completely misses the point that it's safe supply in our drug control strategies. So the voter needs to be much more, more insightful and be able to dig through that perception of crime and the perception of politics versus what actually works. And that's really difficult. So, you know, all three of our organizations meet with this nexus. You know, LEAP is, is not neither conservative nor left leaning. We are a nonpartisan and talking about the issues that impact every single person in our communities. And the bottom line Is how do we create safety? And I need the person who lives next door to me. I need the cops, I need the social workers. And we need massive changes in our laws. And I would wholeheartedly agree with Cassandra, maybe counterintuitive, but we gotta blow up the drug war. We have to stop people, people there as a start, and then work towards all the other solutions, like Brett has said.
- [56:56]
Megan
Thank you, Diane. Okay, Cassandra, last remark before we end this incredible conversation. What do you urge voters to think about as they go to the ball the poll this election season?
- [57:08]
Lemonada
This is a very much a social work therapist answer.
- [57:11]
Megan
I love it.
- [57:12]
Lemonada
Cannot live your life through fear. There are a lot of people on all sides of this that are invested in a scared populace. They want us to be so scared that we can't get in the rooms with each other to hash it out like Brexit Jackson in the first place. We really need to focus on the facts. It's really hard in a moment of such large disinformation, but there are people that are putting out information that can get you to the places that you can ask the right questions. I really, really think that so much of what we're doing is really driven by us being scared of each other and also being scared of being able to walk outside our doors. Right. And a lot of that is also propagated by mass media. So really the focus is try to find as many facts as possible and not the facts on Facebook. No shade, but really trying to get to nonpartisan that can give you the numbers that are less about opinions, that are just giving it to you as straight as possible. Because fear should not determine the way that we build our new world. Because the people that founded this world, that fought for this world, that continue to fight for our world, they are fearless people. And in order for us to get to the world that we need, we need to really lessen the amount of fear that's driving our policy politics.
- [58:37]
Megan
That's right. Thank you all so much. I hope that the folks listening in have learned a lot probably this last hour and have some real concrete things to take to the polls when they go in November. Hopefully everybody will. I also hope that folks listening in truly understand that the criminal justice reform movement is vast. We are comprised of prosecutors. We are comprised of police officers. We are comprised of public health professionals and social workers. We come from a variety of different backgrounds. We have experienced incarceration. Our loved ones have experienced incarceration. We have been survivors of crime, and our families have been survivors of crime. It's truly a multifaceted movement. Thank you all so much. Thanks to our panelists for being part of this live event today, for the important work you are all doing to improve public safety and justice. And thank you for supporting Lemonada Media and the Untold Story Podcast. Thanks to everyone who joined the conversation today and has been listening in. A recording of this event will be shared to Lemonada Premium subscribers and in the Untold Story show feed. Subscribe to the Untold Story wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you all so much and and can't wait to see you all soon. Bye. Hey, I'm Nicole Norfleet. And I'm Erin Brown and we work at the Minnesota Star Tribune and we've got a brand new show called Worth It.
- [60:31]
Diane Goldstein
Every week we get together with a.
- [60:32]
Megan
Group of people who know Minnesota inside and out. We skip the Minnesota Nice and get right to the good stuff. We share the stories and the happenings around the state. Worth your time and your money. Worth it from the Minnesota Star Tribune and Lemonade every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [60:54]
Lemonada
Tired of the same old political shouting.
- [60:56]
Megan
Matches and talking points? Looking for thoughtful conversations that go beyond the headlines and help you understand issues that matter?
- [61:02]
Lemonada
I'm Sarah.
- [61:03]
Megan
And I'm Beth. Together we host Pantsuit Politics, a podcast where we bring grace, nuance and perspective to the news.
- [61:09]
Maggie Croucher
Because democracy does not deserves more than hot takes.
- [61:12]
Megan
Join us as we approach politics and current events with curiosity, empathy, and a commitment to understanding the bigger picture. If you want to stay informed without.
- [61:19]
Maggie Croucher
The anxiety, we're the show for you.
- [61:21]
Megan
New episodes drop on Tuesdays and Fridays. Subscribe to Pantsuit Politics wherever you get your podcasts.