Latest / The Real News Podcast / Republicans’ “Dumb-on-Crime” Crusade in DC Is Coming To Your State Next

Transcript

Republicans’ “Dumb-on-Crime” Crusade in DC Is Coming To Your State Next · The Real News Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to this edition of Rallying the Bars. We're here
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: in the historical part of the District of Columbia, U
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Street fourteenth and U thirteenth and U eleven and U
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: twelve and U all Historic Lincoln Theater and Ben's Chilibol.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: We're here today to talk to two representatives from DC
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Justice Lab about current legislation that Congress is attempting to
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: pass to minimize the DC City Council's ability to pass
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: laws the government's District of Columbia. Stay tuned for this interview.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: The District of Columbia has become the testing ground for
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Congress in terms of reforming so called reform of lords
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: that the city Council has passed. So let's talk about
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: cash bill, what's going on with and what this build
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: is trying to do. Because when we look at what's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: going on in over DC jail and how over crowded
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: it is. What's your opposition on Hib fifty two fourteen.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, DC has had a pretros system in place
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: for the last thirty years or so that has worked well.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: People are kind of released or not based on kind
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: of a demonstrated threat to public safety. It's not necessarily
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: about how much money they have, or starting with the
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: presumption that someone should be incarcerated, and that system has
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: worked well. Most people come back without committing any other crime.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Most people show up for their court date. So it's
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: not a system that's broken. So this is kind of
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: a solution in search of a problem. This congressional bill
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: that you're talking about.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Who profited from because that's what the intent is not
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to change get safe, safe for streets because we are
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: recognize that the streets are safe. So who problem.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: We haven't had cash bill in over thirty years, and
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: you know what that means we haven't had in this
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: city are bail bondsmen or these companies that are very
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: predatory to young to poor people that require these payments
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: and that make money regardless of whether the person, you know,
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: regardless of what the person does after they've been released,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: and they make billions of dollars a year, And we
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: haven't had that exploitative system in d C during this time,
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: and as we've all been discussing, we've been safer for it.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: So that's who is going to profit off of this.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: So we know that this is not about safety. This
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: is about harming poor people. Exploiting them for money. And
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: it's also ideological because I think I'm glad you started
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: with this one as an example of this rollback and
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: of using DC as kind of a Petri dish of
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: what they can force on places around the country, because
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: you see them pushing also on the national level to
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: roll back bail reforms, and it's ideological. I call it
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: dumb on crime approach, rather than following the actual evidence
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: that shows that reforming bail systems, getting rid of cash
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: bail actually makes our community safer, because we know even
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: a short time in jail that destabilizes your life and
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: that leads to worse safety outcomes in the long run.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: We talk about let's talk about another aspect that this
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: is mandatory minimists, and DC has always been real equitable
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: in terms of taking into account the social conditions, really
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: would centizen the way he's supposed to make a determination
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: before the sentence. It's always been like that. Talk about
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: this attack.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: I do agree with you that many of our judges
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: do a good job of taking into account the circumstances
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: around an event when determining a sentence. We actually already
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: have some of the worst mandatory minimum sentences on the
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: books in the country, and under this new proposal in Congress,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: the minimum that someone would be sentenced there would be
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: longer than what the maximum is in some other states
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: for the same conduct. So it's really singling out DC.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: And again it's it's furthering this ideological agenda of like
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: just lock people up. We know all the companies are
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: going to make money off of that and to disempower
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: and harm our communities, including unfortunate disproportionately black communities in
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: DC and across the country are disproportionately impacted by mandatory
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: minimum sentences.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: That in DC, not out of ten people sentence under
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: mandatory minimums were black, and so kind of same kind
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: of look at every statistic as it relates to the
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: criminal legal system in DC, and you're going to see
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: mostly black people. I think it's eight out of ten arrests,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: most of the people in the jail, most of the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: kids that are detained are black, certainly most apportionately impacting
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: black people in poor people.
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  Speaker 3: And then we've got to look at going back to
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: your point earlier that in the interconnection between these different
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: policies you are speaking on the efforts to roll back
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: voting rights right, and how we know that some of
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: the origins of some of these sentences and some of
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: the restrictions on voting after being convicted came out of reconstruction,
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: came out of the backlash reconstruction and trying to disempower
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: and disenfranchised black communities. And so we see we have
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  Speaker 3: to see this and connect this as part of that
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  Speaker 3: lineage as well.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And I think that when we look at the district
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of Columbia, how do you have how can you mold
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: your house when somebody got the authority and ability to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: tell you what you can and cannot spend your own money,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: your own revenue that you generate. So in this regard
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: you've got Congress is interfering with the legislative process. The
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: people that's dually elected to determine what the constituency they
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: want don't have a voice. They can pretend like they do.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: They can vote on something, they can pass it with
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Congress don't like it, the Appropriation Committee will just simply
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: don't find it. And that to kill that which brings
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: me to and this is this is this right here
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: is one thing that I want you all to die
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  Speaker 1: down on. Heaviny just about the youth because they got
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: just pushed. They pushing this effort to like criminalize the
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: youth as young as fourteen. Talk about the attempt to
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: push to make the laws change or create a law
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  Speaker 1: around dealing around youth.
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  Speaker 2: A child, because we're talking about children, could be charged
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: as an adult. There are also some other laws that
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: go up for other young people young adults would affect
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: their ability to kind of have a second look that
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: they're sentences served some time, or that would impact their
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: ability to have their record sealed after a certain amount
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: of time, and would affect the discretion that judges have
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  Speaker 2: in certain cases to send ince a young person kind
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: of in alignment with where they are developmentally. And what
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  Speaker 2: we know and what we've known for decades about laws
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  Speaker 2: like this is that they're counterproductive of their as kind
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: of productive as they are oxymoronic. You know, if you
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  Speaker 2: think about treating a child as an adult, just because
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: you say you're an adult does not make a child
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  Speaker 2: an adult, and it actually ignores what science says about
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: the developing brain. We know very well at this point
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  Speaker 2: that our brain, excuse me, as humans are developing well
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  Speaker 2: into our twenties, especially the part of the brain that
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: deals with impulse control. So there are certain things we
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: take for granted with kids that they're going to be
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: impulse so that they're going to engage in risky behaviors,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: and we account for that with the driving age, with drinking,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: with buying tobacco, with voting, with enlisting. We acknowledge in
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: all of these different contexts that children are different and
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: that we have to kind of help make decisions for
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: them because their brains do not allow them to do
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: this well. But in the context of crime and incarceration,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: for some reason, we treat kids differently in that context
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't work. We know that for kids contact
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: with any part of the system. So even if they
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: see someone getting pulled over by a police they see
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: their friends being encountered by police, that from that to
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: being in a courtroom, to being arrested to being incarcerated,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: that actually sets them back developmentally.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: The fact that they're saying in this cadence that you
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: for taking over the city, and they're using this as
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a pretext for getting tough one is definitely saying.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: What we're seeing with these incidents with young people is
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: guess what young people are still recovering from the trauma
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: of the COVID epidemic and of the shutdowns that happen,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: and of the challenges with socialization they've had. We're now
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: learning so much more about the negative impacts of social
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: media on them. And I'm a parent of a team. Look,
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  Speaker 3: kids just want to get together. They want to not
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  Speaker 3: have to deal with adults. They want to be able
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: to be with each other a little bit. And that's
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: what the vast majority of kids are doing in these situations.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: They're just looking for a place to get together. And
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of those places have disappeared. Yeah we have
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: our rec centers, Yeah we have libraries. That's really important.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: But think about the movie theater is the malls. Union
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: station is largely blocked off to them at this point, right,
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  Speaker 3: so where else are they supposed to go? Is a
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: question you keep hearing from them. I think it just
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: goes back to a point that Bethany was making of, like,
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  Speaker 3: these are children, Let's give them the support that they need,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Let's invest in them, let's lift them up instead of
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: continuing to tell them you're not welcome here, you can't
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: go there. This city and all the changing that it's
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: happened is not for you in these areas, which is
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: putting a real distinct point on it, in my opinion,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: on top of the displacement and the gentrification that's already
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: happened in the city that has pushed so many people
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  Speaker 3: out of traditional neighborhoods like Southwest that you can even
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: go back centuries that was decades either, that was a
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: very robust, multi ethnic community before it was destroyed by
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: urban redevelopment back in the sixties, I believe it was.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: And then now has had this new wave happening as well,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: and you see it all over the city.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, attitude we got to create a false narrative that
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: in order for this place to be safe, we got
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: to identify who making it unsafe, and that's the youth.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: And which bring me to the point of the United
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  Speaker 1: States Attorney General for the District of Columbia recently said, quote,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I know evil when I see it, no matter what
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  Speaker 1: their age. How do y'all respond to that they wearing hoodies?
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  Speaker 1: That's evil? But you know evil?
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Responded that fear is a really loud emotion that people
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: respond to. And if you can make me afraid enough,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna support I can support a lot of different things.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: If you're saying it's in the name of safety, but
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: what we know is that it's it's not actually tried
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: to safety. That you the rest are down that kind
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: of across the country. Some of the trends that we've
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: seen that we saw during COVID and immediately post, we're
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: turning the corner on those that. You know, the things
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: that communities are doing to give people, young people other
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: options to invest in them if given time, are working.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: When you when you create an environment where you have
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: someone job like I'm me and my sister. We was
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the first generation when they first started summer jobs, and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: we lived in the projects in the district of Columbia,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and when they created summer jobs, the whole city became
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: vibrant because we had money. Young people had money, and
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: young people had perspose.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: We know that giving people the right to determine their
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: own future is what makes them great and what makes
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: our democracy great.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So what's your strategy now around what's going on? Because
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: they I was I was down there when we went
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: down to Congress, I was there. I forgot the congressman's
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: name out of the Florida to introduced the bill uh
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: like his town don't have problems. They reading articles that
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: didn't have nothing to do with the disc They reading
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: an article from Arizona or New Mexico and and just
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: reading the facts of the article and making it seem
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: like this is DC. Talk about where y'all at in
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: terms of your advocacy and your strategy around you know,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: changing is narrative or more importantly, mobilizing people to be
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: effective in terms of advocating.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: So kind of we're continuing the work that we do
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: locally on that. In terms of shrinking policing, shrinking incarceration,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: we recently, along with about thirty other partners in the district,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: put together our twenty twenty six public Safety Policy Agenda
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: that kind of runs the gamut from kind of community
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: based investments around kind of non police alternatives to safety
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: like violence interrupters, credible messengers, investing and protecting in youth. So,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: you know, before a kid even gets into the system,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: what are the things that we can be doing to
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: surround them to make sure that they're thriving, that they
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: have access to opportunities, that they're building confidence and self
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: efficacy and skills all the way up until kind of
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: ways that our local officials can stand up and make
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: a stronger statement to the federal government about the respect
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: for DC laws. And you know, we talked about this
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: a little bit earlier. There's only but so much they
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: can do, but they can make their voices in their
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: position known in a way that I don't know that
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: we've seen our elected officials locally do satisfactorily.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Let me just say, y'all gote a document this y'all
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: putting out, so this open the doors of insertion in
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: terms of application, you know, how to get people to stop. Okay,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: if we're talking about incredible message fund net.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: Although we do have these threats for the federal government
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: right now, we also know, as we were just discussing
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: with the curfew right that unfortunately our local elected officials
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: are also making some bad choices around policies, and of
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: course we want to defend their right to make that choice.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: We want to also convince them to make the right choice.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Right But you know, that's what this document lays out
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: is this policy agenda is a number of recommendations that
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: are not new that we've been making, that people in
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: the community have been making, that experts have studied, and
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: the evidence backs up and so in addition to that,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: other things that we're also doing a educating the council
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: and staff, educating the mayor, educating the public about these
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: proposals in Congress to roll back our laws, you know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: to order to impose bad new ones on us. You know,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: the more of a united front and the more voice
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: we have, the better chance we have of geting back
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: these fundamentally undemocratic attacks that are trying to set us
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: back years and years.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: And we should be handcup because someone is to your point,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: ideologically think that we should be back and change. So
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I want, I want to commit y'all on y'all work.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: You know, we can pick up upon. We have resources
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: that we can share around how to advocate kind of
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: in the legislative process, but kind of keep learning about
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: what's happening. Make sure that you understand what it is,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: because it can feel distant to some people. It can
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: feel like that's not happening to me. But rest assured
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: that's going to get closer and closer, and before you
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: know it, it'll be. It's kind of at all of
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: our doorsteps at this moment. So continue to say aware
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: and engaged and ask people to do what they can
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: to push back. O.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we see unfortunately this playbook being tried out here,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: but we know where it's going next. We know it's
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: already been being used in other places. Right. People saw
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: the violence that happened in Minneapolis and Los Angeles and Chicago. Right,
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: that's the same stuff that we've been dealing with. And
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: actually we've still got the National Guard in DC and
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: all the rest of the places they pulled back. So
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: we are really struggling, and we need help from everyone
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: that's willing to help. All our residents need to speak out.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: We all got to be in this together, and we
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: need help from friends and family all over the country
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: who actually have a vote in Congress and should be
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: reaching out and doing what they can. We can't be satisfied,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: like you said, with our colonial status right now. Home
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: rule is a bare minimum. So we need statehood and
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: we need people to support statehood.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Pretty z