Thread by @Arnold_Ventures

Laurie Robinson starting off the inaugural leadership summit by discussing the need for fact-based solutions in criminal justice.

Next up: @abgelb, who is pointing out that both crime and incarceration are falling at the same time, creating a new thirst for knowledge about what works and what doesn’t. And we need to meet that demand.

“What is factual, not just fashionable” in criminal justice, as Gelb puts it.

“We’re just one horrible case away from returning to the days of Willie Horton and we can’t let that happen” #justicereform

Now up, @JTravis48, who refers to the gathering as a “family reunion.”

Travis starts by mourning the passing of @RepCummings, and quoting him: “It’s time to get back to our democracy so we can pass it along to our children so they can do better than we did.”

Travis hopes that people will be “skeptical, maybe even heretical, about conventional wisdom.”

After watching a video of news clips on crime policy from the 1980s to today, Roy Austin is moderating a panel

First question to @deray: more black people commit crimes, so more black people are in prison. Why is that wrong?
His answer: we have data on arrests, not necessarily crime, and arrest rates are biased
Furthermore, this is an overarching question of poverty

Next Q to Charles Ramsey: so are police racist? The problem, he says, is implicit bias, which is difficult to overcome. It involves arrests, prosecution and sentencing.

He says we can’t ignore victims of crimes. There’s a reason to arrest criminals.

Deray responds to say there’s no connection between crime and police violence. One third of people killed by a stranger are killed by a cop, he says

Ramsey responds: communities have crime. 80 percent of homicide victims are black and police need to do their jobs to help

Marissa Dodson weighing in on racism: the system isn’t broken. It’s doing what it was intended to do. Read “The New Jim Crow.”

African Americans are more likely to be searched but less likely to have a weapon when searched, she says. #cjsummit

This is not just about having more black prosecutors or police officers. Racism is baked into the system, she says.

Ramsey responds: we send resources where the violent crimes are happening. Black community has to learn how to police itself first

New topic: we’re changing we way we talk about incarcerated people, with an emphasis on humanized language, says Alice Johnson. We’re giving the formerly incarcerated a seat at the table. We’re telling personal stories about neighbors and families

“We’re not just a statistic or a number”

Next up: @GroverNorquist. Most of the people going to prison are coming out again and humanization is important. That’s why we’re changing job licensing regulations. We need to help people when they get out.

Louis Reed of @cut_50 saying that language influences perception, and perception influences policy.
He repeats it a few times just to drive the point home. #cjreform #justicereform

Oregon Lege passed a bill requiring evidence based practices, says Colette Peters. And we have research that shows how words matter.
As an example: Just think about “a person without a home” vs “a homeless person.”

Question to Bruce Western: so what actually works? Crime is down but rising incarceration was a very small contributor to a decline in crime, he says

In fact there are strategies that don’t rely on incarceration at all to lower crime rates. Much crime is intimately linked to poverty, housing, addiction and mental health. Proper policy responses don’t live in the criminal justice world.

Question from Norquist: can you see different outcomes based on individual state policies or was it a broad secular trend?
Western points out that declines happened in US and Western Europe, which hints something was going on in liberal democracies across the globe.

What about tech? Ramsey says new tech is useful and needed but poses problems. “It’s easy to get into a database. It’s hard to get out.” We need policies in place to minimize opportunities for abuse.

Marissa Dodson says tech can help reduce the burden of a criminal justice system. But new tools, like body cams for example, haven’t necessarily fulfilled promises of accountability.

Did crime go up recently? Is there American Carnage?
Western points out that we’re at a new, low baseline not seen since the 1960s and trends are basically flat. You saw a tick up around 2015, and then a tick down.

Can it go even lower?
Western says the US is a violent society and that should be unacceptable.
A lot of it is interpersonal violence, and also state violence of policing and incarceration.

Q: we always talk about releasing the nonviolent offender, but only by lessening punishment for violent crimes can we truly reduce incarceration rates.
Reed points to redemptive justice as a new way to talk about violent crime.

“I am not the worst thing I have ever done in my life,” says Reed. People have potential far beyond any crime or violence they may have engaged in.

Some violent offender charges aren’t really about acts of violence. The presence of a gun, even if not used, can make a violent crime, says Johnson

Norquist says the divide should be between violent crime, nonviolent crime, and victimless crimes or vices. We need to end prohibitions on vices and stop treating them via the criminal justice system

CJ reform is now popular. So, Q to Deray, does everyone agree with your ideas?
We’re still struggling with big pictures. Police have a bad track record of solving crimes, so why do we keep spending money on police rather than other services that have proven results?

Ok, after a break we’re back with an interview of Judge Leifman, who is spearheading mental health issues as an administrative judge in Miami

Mental health is not a life sentence — there is a solid track record of recovery — and they’re not more likely than anyone else to commit violent crimes

The judge says we need to bring mental health screenings and treatment into schools and help people early.

The county implemented mental health diversion program. It’s not enough to just tell people to take their meds, he says. Often, if people end up interacting with police, they’ve probably hit a low and are suffering from depression on top of already existing health issues

People don’t understand the cost of not doing this right, he says.

Miami Dade County is building a first of its kind one stop shop that provides primary, mental health, education, trauma services and even tattoo removal.
People in psychosis do silly things and it’s hard to get a job with a pot leaf on your face, he says.

Now up: a video statement from former Georgia Gov Nathan Deal, who says he hopes the first step act will be a first step of many

Now the CCJ task force on federal priorities is up.
What are their recommendations?
1. Evidence based policy
2. Holistic and inclusive reentry
3. ID and remedy racial biases
4. Keep victims of crimes front and center

Sally Yates says a big problem is mandatory minimums, especially for drug offenses. The law ends up capturing people it was never originally intended to impact, she says

Mark Holden says, in an aside, we need to do a better job of upholding the sixth amendment and providing defense attorneys to everyone.
On his main point, he says drugs are basically winning the drug war and feds must respect state laws on marijuana

Eduardo Bocanegra points out that victims and perpetrators of crimes largely overlap, making it difficult to support victims

Nancy LaVigne pointing to lack of transparency in prison system, making it difficult to ensure we’re getting the outcomes we want

Holden says we need a culture shift. It’s a language issue, too: it should be the Bureau of Rehabilitation and Corrections, not Prisons.
And maybe move from DOJ to HHS or the Dept. of Labor.

Nobody should leave prison without a meaningful education program, Yates says. And the only program offered across the board at a federal level right now is GED classes.

Bocanegra says he first saw a murder at 13, joined a gang shortly after, and personally benefited from vocational training in Illinois prison. But loss of pell grants made that difficult.
“Do you want someone less educated coming out of prison?”

Now up: Ja’Ron Smith, to offer a perspective from the White House.

Government is like a big ship and it’s hard to turn that boat, he says. Implementation of the first step act is going slow and steady. Needs assessment will be a heavy lift because so many BoP facilities are so old

There’s lots of opportunities for people leaving incarceration. Working with HUD to make housing available; allowing people to apply for government jobs while still in facilities.

After a lunch discussion on federal reforms, were onto the next panel: when reform meets reality

What happens when people, politicians and the media blame reforms for violent crimes?

What are the unintended consequences of mandatory arrest policies in domestic violence cases?

#cjreform

Mandatory arrests for domestic violence often results in arrests of victims, removal of children from families, and other unintended harms, says Janelle Melohn

Policy makers need to think like scientists when it comes to proving their programs, says Douglas Marlowe of NADCP

When you study medical issues you have to report the adverse effects. We need to do that with criminal justice policy too, says Marlowe. We have to prepare people for when things go wrong.

If we want to be a true profession then we need standards of care and reporting requirements, he says. And there need to be consequences for failing to meet those standards.

The criminal justice system is like the wind and the ocean, he says, it erodes everything over time. Which is why we have to ensure evidence based policies don’t regress to old practices over time

Closing on a high note, and onto the next event: an interview with economist @jenniferdoleac

So what happens when supposedly gold standard cj programs don’t actually work? We can’t take outcomes for granted and must keep updating and improving

We need to presume that everything we try will fail, she says. People have been working on these things for a long time and still haven’t succeeded because #CJreform is hard. So we need to fail fast rather than not fail at all.

Doleac says that it’s an exciting time to be a researcher because there’s so much data out there now

Now a video from former Gov. @JerryBrownGov: he says that between his first time as gov in the 1970s and his contemporary term, incarcerations grew by 500 percent

Brown says we must give people in incarceration an opportunity to redeem themselves. “Whatever your ideology that is the roots of our civilization.”

Thus transitioning to a politics panel: @GovMattBevin, @KevinMaddenDC and @geraldmalloySC

Q: politicians like their jobs and want to keep them. What are the benefits of CJ reform, and how do you communicate those to voters and electeds?
Bevin says we need to focus on the humanity, find the common ground, and be willing to take baby steps

How do you deal with a partisan atmosphere where people question each other’s intentions? Malloy says he embraces the challenge of working with republicans and crafting bills in a way that gets necessary votes.

81 percent of people on death row come out of foster care, says Bevin. He calls on houses of worship and communities of faith to adopt. “It is a vicious and virtuous cycle.”

Now: violence reduction with Thomas Abt and Rev. Michael McBride.

McBride says that less than half of one percent of a a city population is responsible for 50-60 percent of gun violence. And we have strategies that reduce this violence without incarceration

The nation doesn’t view the deaths of black males as its responsiblity to solve. Instead it just has a containment response. McBride says he has to convince people that these lives are worth saving.

Now the finale: Sally Yates and Mark Holden.

This summit is supposed to begin an incubator for the ideas that make our CJ system more fair and safer.

These are real people’s lives that are being impacted.