Latest / Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News / Crime, punishment, and the shifting moral compass of America

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Crime, punishment, and the shifting moral compass of America · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:04
  We are faith and fury.
• 0:06
  Love and fire.
• 0:09
  This is the human equation where every voice counts and every truth cuts deep.
• 0:17
  With your host, Joseph Pangaro.
• 0:20
  Everybody, and welcome aboard the human equation.
• 0:24
  I'm your host, Joseph Pangaro.
• 0:26
  So I got a lot of uh response to an episode we did recently about the crashing of the American melting pot and the decisions we have to make as we go into a cultural battle between left and right, uh, religious, anti-Semitic, all of these things that are going on in America are really are all culturally based as I see them, because while it may be about religion, it's about the traditions of that religion and is it compatible with America?
• 1:01
  It's about political points of view uh and what the beliefs and is that um is that compatible with America, which really, when you look at it, it all comes down to cultural issues.
• 1:16
  So one of the things that we see culturally is uh the way we deal with crime and punishment in America.
• 1:27
  Now, this has been a topic that's gone on for many years.
• 1:32
  You know, every every group of 10 or 15 or 20 years, we have a review uh nationally, it's not set down on a calendar, it just kind of happens naturally, it evolves.
• 1:43
  When we say, okay, let's take a look at how we're doing things now, and are we doing the right thing?
• 1:50
  Is are we are we handling criminal activity the right way?
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  Are we handing criminals the right way?
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  Are we doing the right uh types of punishments?
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  Is it a punishment at all?
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  Or should it be a rehabilitation?
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  We go through these thoughts about you know what's right and what's wrong.
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  And under a traditional kind of America, we are a rule of law country.
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  You know, we create rules and laws here, not to uh shut people down, but to create an environment so that we can all live a peaceful, chaos-free life.
• 2:28
  You've heard me say this multiple times.
• 2:32
  You know, we we all want to be able to raise our children the way we see fit.
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  We all want to um enjoy our time.
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  Uh, our time off, our family time, our work time.
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  We want to do what we want to do.
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  We want to be able to uh do what we want.
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  We want to live where we want to live, love who we want to love, do these kind of things without interference, right?
• 2:55
  In the traditional American system brought to us by our forefathers, provided for that rugged individualism and the unity as a country.
• 3:05
  So we do have basic beliefs together in traditional America that we have clung to for 250 years that have gotten us pretty far, made us the leader of the world.
• 3:19
  Alright, so you think about that.
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  America, whether you like America or not, we are the leader of the world.
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  We have the most powerful military in the world, which is not used for conquest.
• 3:32
  Now, anybody who's a uh a student of history, uh, you will know that when my saying that I use all the time is the um default position of humanity is to live under tyranny, that is really true.
• 3:48
  If you go back and you look at all these societies, you lived under kings and czars and rulers and pharaohs and and the strong man controlled the society.
• 3:58
  And America was the difference in the world in that we the people, you know, the power was taken away from government theoretically and given to the people.
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  The people would uh would make the decisions we would vote on.
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  We have representative republic, right?
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  We're not a democracy, a democracy is a different animal.
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  A democracy would be majority rules.
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  So if everybody said, okay, uh, you know, we're going to keep uh we're gonna keep negative uh things that we all like uh because it benefits a few of us uh and but we all voted for it, so we're gonna keep it.
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  They could have voted that we're gonna keep slavery.
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  Okay, was 51 votes to 49 votes and we're gonna stay slavery, right?
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  That's not how America works.
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  We have uh, you know, we don't have a majority rule because sometimes the majority is wrong, right?
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  That's what we found at the time uh slavery in the world, and you've got to look through the context of the times in which it existed, not how we see things today.
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  Back in the day, there was slavery all over the world.
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  And matter of fact, even today, there's slavery all over the world, but we ignore it.
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  Um the reason we ignore it today, my belief, the reason we ignore it today, the mainstream media ignores it, doing stories about it, bringing it out, uh, bringing it to life, letting everyone see it, is because it would take away from the negativity that people on the left have focused on America.
• 5:26
  America's a slave country, and we'd go back to that in a split second if we were allowed to, and we're America hates black people.
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  That's the narrative that the media wants to run with.
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  So if they were to bring up that, oh, by the way, in Africa, there's still unbelievable slavery amongst the people of Africa.
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  Gee, that would kind of uh that might dilute the whole America is really a racist, horrible place that wants to go back to slavery if they were allowed.
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  If Trump had his way, and all those magas had their way, right?
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  That's the narrative that they want to push.
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  So they ignore that.
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  But the reality is, you know, uh we're not a democracy.
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  We are a we are democratic form of government, but we are a representative republic, right?
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  So we the people uh listen to a bunch of people who want to represent us, and we pick the people that are as close to what our beliefs are as possible, and we vote for them.
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  And then we trust them to go in and say, hey, the people in my district, uh, they want uh school lunches to be 50 cents, not three dollars, so I'm gonna vote for that, right?
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  Uh or whatever, whatever the topic is.
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  When we don't like that representative, when they're not representing what we believe in our community, we vote for somebody else, right?
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  We don't go out and uh and and attack the person, we don't shoot them, we don't assassinate them, we vote for somebody else.
• 6:48
  This is the beauty of uh of the American system.
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  So as we see this going forward, I've gotten uh quite a few emails and texts and whatnot from people talking about understanding this cultural revolution, I guess, that we're we're experiencing here in America.
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  Cultural revolution, I guess, that we're we're experiencing here in America.
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  Which way is America gonna go?
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  Which way is America gonna go?
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  Well, one of those things that's involved in our cultural uh situation is how we deal with crime.
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  Well, one of those things that's involved in our cultural uh situation is how we deal with crime.
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  Right.
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  Alright, so as a person who spent uh 30 years in active law enforcement, uh the majority of my career, uh I think I spent eight years on the road as a uniformed patrol officer, then I spent 14 years as a detective and a detective supervisor in the investigation division, uh, and then I spent uh the balance of my career as a supervisor uh as a sergeant and then a lieutenant managing the men and women of law enforcement, managing the community needs uh and trying to do the right thing.
• 7:16
  So as a person who spent uh 30 years in active law enforcement, uh the majority of my career, uh I think I spent eight years on the road as a uniformed patrol officer, then I spent 14 years.
• 7:48
  So I have seen, I have seen the world through the lens of crime and punishment, what people do, how it affects communities, how it affects people.
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  I have watched a change in communities based on how crime developed uh and how it was addressed.
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  And traditionally, America has seen criminals as the bad guys and the bad girls.
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  If you commit a crime, you break one of the laws that we all agree on, right?
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  We created laws against burglary, rape, murder, theft, fraud, um, how we deal with children, labor laws.
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  We've come up with all these laws, not to restrict people's ability to live their lives, but to create an environment where we can all live a chaos-free, crime-free life where we're free to do the things that we want to do, to develop the ideas that we want to develop, to create what we want to create.
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  It is a it's a great uh canvas on which to paint your life is freedom.
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  As long as we all don't cause problems for other people, you know, do our thing, right?
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  And that's really what America's been all about.
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  And when we look at crime, that traditional view that if you broke a law, you did something illegal because uh you're a bad person, then you should have two things.
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  First of all, we believed punishment, right?
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  You are to be punished for doing this negative thing, whatever it is.
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  You break into people's houses and steal their stuff.
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  You should go to prison.
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  Uh a part of your life should be taken away from you, and you should live behind bars like an animal uh for X amount of years because of what you did to society and to the individual victim victims.
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  We also look at that with our uh, you know, we have laws against murder, right?
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  Because you don't because you disagree with someone, you don't just go out and kill them.
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  And if you do, uh you will you will pay a very high price.
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  Either you will go to jail for many, many, many years, maybe your entire life you will die in jail, or maybe you'll be put to death, right?
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  And we don't take that lightly.
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  You know, putting someone to death is giving the state a lot of power, uh, which is uh it almost seems contrary to the American um the American way of life is that we would say the state, which you know, we believe the state is secondary to the individual here in America, that the state would put someone to death, take their life from them.
• 10:27
  That's a pretty heavy sorry.
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  All this pollen in the air is killing me.
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  You know, that's a pretty heavy lift for the to uh for of people to allow the government to take the life of one of our other citizens.
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  But in reality, we have agreed to that, right?
• 10:48
  We have agreed that there are things that are so egregious to do to another citizen that the penalty should be enormous as well.
• 10:58
  So if you kill somebody in the act of robbing or raping them, when you're captured and you're convicted, and we prove it was you, because that's an important element we have here in America too, is you should pay such a very big penalty, and that penalty could be your life, where they take your life.
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  I mean, what is bigger than taking someone's life?
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  But we've decided for many years that that that was the standard.
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  We all understood that we don't do those things.
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  So most of us do not have the proclivity to go kill somebody to rob them and rape them just because we want to.
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  That's the reality.
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  Most of us do not live with that kind of thought process in our head.
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  But we also have a reality that there are many of us that live in our country that do have that thought process.
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  That if they want something you got, they're gonna come and take it.
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  And if you try and stop them from taking, they'll hurt you for trying to stop them, right?
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  And they may even kill you.
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  And we know that those people are there.
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  I think statistically, it goes back and forth, but I think they the studies have shown that there's probably about 20% of the population, overall, across all races, religions, nations, everywhere.
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  About 20% of the American population is um criminal-oriented.
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  Well, they will they'll do uh crimes, whether it's street crimes, street robberies, raping someone on the street, uh, armed robbery where you kill somebody, uh, all the way up to economic crime, you know, from the uh people who were dealing with millions of dollars and they find a way to snake it and steal it and hide it and do all that crime.
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  It's about 20% of people that are prone to do criminal activity, even though they know it's wrong.
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  And we deal with them with all these different laws, right?
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  We find them, we go after them.
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  Uh, and we hold them to account for what they did for a purpose of punishment.
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  We're punishing you for what you did, right?
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  So that, you know, hopefully, if you're gonna get out again, you come out and say, Boy, that was a huge penalty I had to pay for doing that.
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  I'm never gonna do that again, and then you will live like an ordinary decent citizen and stop hurting people.
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  Right?
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  But over time, and again, this is where my theory of abundance, anybody who's listened to previous episodes, go back and listen to it.
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  Uh, the idea of abundance, when when people have abundance, it gives them time to think about other things, to explore ideas that maybe they didn't have a chance to explore before.
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  Um, like, hey, is it really right to put someone in jail for 30 years?
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  Right?
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  Shouldn't we break it down?
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  So we've seen over the course of our history that our laws respond to that.
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  Alright, so when we look up the word murder, murder is the intentional taking of a human being's life for some nefarious reason.
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  You wanted their stuff, you wanted their woman, you wanted their car, you wanted whatever, and you decided to kill them to get what you wanted.
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  You wanted whatever, and you decided to kill them to get what you wanted.
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  That is uh that's brutal.
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  That is uh that's brutal.
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  But we also know that two idiots in a bar drinking can get into an argument in a fight and they start throwing fists.
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  But we also know that two idiots in a bar drinking can get into an argument in a fight, and they start throwing fists, one guy gets hit, falls down, bangs his head on a chair, hits the floor, cracks his skull, and dies.
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  One guy gets hit, falls down, bangs his head on a chair, hits the floor, cracks his skull, and dies.
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  There was no intent to murder that person.
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  There was no intent to murder that person.
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  It was two idiots acting in a careless, um reckless kind of a manner, and one guy ended up dying.
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  It was two idiots acting in a careless, um reckless kind of a manner, and one guy ended up dying.
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  There was no intent to kill.
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  There was no intent to kill that person.
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  So while it is still a homicide, the intentional take or the taking of a human life, uh, even if it's not intentional, we broke that down and we said, let's, okay, well, that's it was unintentional.
• 14:44
  The person didn't set out purposely to kill somebody, but their actions led to the death of a person, and you can't do that.
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  Should you throw punches in a bar?
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  No, you should keep your hands to yourself, right?
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  But if it ends up happening, then we call that manslaughter.
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  Right?
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  Manslaughter is a is a about the taking of another human life, but without the malice or forethought that is involved often in murder, right?
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  So we we diced that up a little because we're trying to figure out what's the human equation here.
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  Did if the person had no intent to kill somebody, but they ended up dead because of their actions, either either party's actions, well, that's not murder, right?
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  So you're not punishing someone for being a murderer, you're punishing them for engaging in very bad behavior that ended up in the death of a person, right?
• 15:35
  Also very bad, but less bad than who somebody went out and just decide to kill you because they want your wallet.
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  So we have different penalties for that.
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  That might be 15 years to life, whereas murder might be 30 years to life, or life imprisonment, or the death penalty.
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  You know, you don't get the death penalty for manslaughter because you didn't intend to go and kill someone.
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  Did I make the point?
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  Do you kind of get what I'm saying?
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  So we break things down when it comes to crime because uh we're trying to be as fair and as just as possible based on someone's actions and their intentions.
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  All right.
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  So in many parts of our country, for years we have seen um movements in abundance, now that we have so much, we need to think differently, maybe we made a mistake, and we do review our criminal justice process every 20 or 25 years.
• 16:33
  Again, not on a timeline, but just things change.
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  Our society changes, our beliefs change, our enlightenment changes, our understanding of human nature changes, and therefore we adjust, not necessarily on the fly, but we adjust when time comes.
• 16:48
  So for the longest time, we pretty much held that if you committed crime, you should be punished and punished severely because that helps the victim because you know you shouldn't have done what you did to the victim, and you are punished severely, so you will learn your lesson, and it's a way to get back at the criminal.
• 17:07
  That's just a reality.
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  You did something bad, and we're as a society, we're going to punish you.
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  Well, over time, abundance has made us see things differently.
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  We started to look at well, who are the criminals?
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  Are they really criminals?
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  Are they really big uh is what they did deserving of such a severe punishment?
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  Or should we now look at the criminals with a softer eye and try and figure out what would motivate people to commit crime?
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  And can we can we understand that maybe their life experience led them to commit crime?
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  So therefore they're not fully responsible, as our previous system might have said, doesn't matter the reason you did it, you did it, and you're gonna be punished.
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  Now we started looking at the criminal and saying, well, what led them to crime?
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  Now, there's two things that we we look at here historically as a society.
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  We looked at this because I was in the middle of these arguments, I was living it as a cop.
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  We look at it and say, well, a person's life circumstance, the circumstance they had no choice over, they were born into it, can lead them to see the rules of society differently because of their circumstance.
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  And, and here's the tail end of it, and is that circumstance something they should be held accountable to?
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  Or should should society be held accountable because of the condition that they lived in?
• 18:46
  And we break that down into is poverty causing people to commit crime because they have no choice, and poverty is the fault of the society for capitalism, and not everyone gets ahead, right?
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  Or is it racially based?
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  Do we put people in jail just because of their race?
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  We don't like this group of people, therefore put them in jail, right?
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  Now, to be fair, when you analyze something like this, you have to take off all your blinders.
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  You have to take off all your blinders, and you have to accept facts, not just feelings, right?
• 19:26
  So when we look at those things, we started to say, well, our country has a history of racism in that we had slavery.
• 19:35
  So therefore, have there been instances across time where racism has caused people to be punished unjustly or unfairly or over punished because we don't like the race of people.
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  Is that true?
• 19:51
  And I think you'd have to say, yes, that's true.
• 19:54
  Um, I think you can find many, many examples where that is absolutely true.
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  Um, where African Americans treated more severely than white people.
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  I think you can find examples of that, and I think we have to face that reality.
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  Now, does that mean that goes on today?
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  Does that mean we haven't grown from those beliefs and those things?
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  No, I think we have.
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  I think we have a lot.
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  So one of the arguments that comes up is that um we see it all the time.
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  The communities are are plagued with crime, and we say it's society's fault.
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  It's society's fault that people don't have nice things, that people don't have enough right housing, they don't have so therefore they go commit crimes.
• 20:39
  So we're going to be more lenient to people that commit those things, if they can make a case in the courtroom that the reason they were doing robberies is because they don't have any money, because they're unfairly treated, or they weren't allowed to have an education, or whatever, whatever the reason or and or excuse we can come up with.
• 21:00
  And we started to look at that as a society and say, okay, maybe we need to change how we punish.
• 21:00
  And we started to look at that as a society and say, okay, maybe we need to change how we punish.
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  And this is where we see the breakdown and the uh changing of the laws, where we see different laws instituted, or we see murder, manslaughter, manslaughter one, manslaughter two, aggravated man.
• 21:07
  And this is where we see the breakdown and the the uh changing of the laws, where we see different laws instituted, or we see murder, manslaughter, manslaughter one, manslaughter two, aggravated manslaughter.
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  So we see all these different breakdowns.
• 21:20
  We see all these different breakdowns because we're trying to be as fair as we can and take into account what goes on.
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  Because we're trying to be as fair as we can and take into account what goes on.
• 21:27
  I could tell you right now, when you go to court.
• 21:27
  I could tell you right now, when you go to court, there's two different kind of people that end up in front of the judge, and the person that's found guilty or pleads guilty, if they add to that and may a culpa, that they are sorry for what they did.
• 21:42
  They are sorry for what they did to the victim and to society, and they they feel bad about it and they don't want to do it again, and they express that.
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  In general, that will be viewed very positively in the court, and they may get a reduced sentence.
• 21:58
  They may get a lesser of a punishment.
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  Why?
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  Because they're accepting they did wrong.
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  They're taking responsibility, they're sorry for it, and hopefully they will never do it again.
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  Now the court looks at that person and says there's some redeeming qualities here.
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  They realize they did wrong.
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  Can we all do wrong?
• 22:15
  Can we all make mistakes?
• 22:16
  Well, we all don't do rape and robbery, but we all do things wrong sometimes, and purposely sometimes.
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  We we break a rule, we do whatever.
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  So the court looks at that person and may adjust the punishment they get, as opposed to the other person who comes in and refuses to accept responsibility for what they did.
• 22:35
  They snicker, they laugh and joke at the victims and their families, they they make a stink out of uh, you know, the court system and they they yell and scream.
• 22:44
  That's going to be antagonistic.
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  And then the court is most likely going to impose a more severe penalty.
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  Why?
• 22:52
  Because this person is not expressing sorrow uh for what they did.
• 22:59
  They're not recognizing they did wrong and hurt somebody.
• 23:02
  So therefore, they're going to get a heavier penalty.
• 23:05
  Now, this is this goes on throughout the entire entire system from a car stop on the side of the road.
• 23:12
  You know, you pull somebody over because they're speeding.
• 23:15
  All right.
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  Now there's a couple different kinds of speeding, right?
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  And this is how much we break it down.
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  Normally they're speeding.
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  Speed limit's 55, you're doing 72, you're speeding.
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  Here's your ticket, go away.
• 23:26
  But you pull somebody over and you talk to them, and you say to yourself, using your experience, you say, listen, I stopped you here on this highway where there's no other drivers out here in the middle of the night.
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  You're doing 72 and a 55.
• 23:38
  That's speeding.
• 23:39
  Officer, I didn't realize I was going that fast.
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  It's late.
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  I'm kind of tired.
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  I'm trying to get home.
• 23:45
  Uh I I you know, I'm sorry, you know, if I caused any problem.
• 23:49
  Now, the officer can listen to that and through experience can know have any of us ever been tired, trying to get home from a long day, trying to get back to our family.
• 24:00
  You're on a road where there's not a lot of cars, so you're going a little faster.
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  Can we all do it?
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  Is that breaking the law?
• 24:04
  It is breaking the law.
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  But there's a caveat.
• 24:10
  If you are genuine, and accepting, hey, I'm probably going to get a ticket here because I broke the law, but here's my reasons that I did.
• 24:18
  You will often get compassion, and the officer will use their discretion, which officers have to charge or not charge or whatever, to give a warning to give a ticket, and they will take into account what you're telling them.
• 24:31
  Well, we've all been tired, we've all tried to get home.
• 24:34
  There's not really a lot of cars on the road.
• 24:36
  You shouldn't have been speeding.
• 24:37
  But here's a warning, right?
• 24:38
  Slow down because you can endanger yourself, you could fall asleep, crash, or whatever.
• 24:42
  It's a million different things.
• 24:44
  As opposed to stopping someone who's doing 72 and a 55, and they say, What'd you stop me for?
• 24:50
  What are you picking on me for?
• 24:51
  And there's a lot of traffic, and they're cutting in and out of traffic, they're going too fast, they're endangering everybody.
• 24:57
  Now that person who gives an attitude is demonstrating to the officer that they don't care about the safety of other people or themselves.
• 25:06
  So therefore, the idea that, okay, let's give this person leniency.
• 25:12
  No, they're not going to learn their lesson, so you hand them the ticket, maybe multiple tickets for changing lanes, not using signals.
• 25:18
  Why?
• 25:19
  So that when they have they get them tickets and the points and the uh and the penalty, they say to themselves in the future, let me not endanger everybody around me.
• 25:27
  Now that's the that's the philosophy of discretion and and handing out penalties and this and that.
• 25:35
  So the bigger picture is we have over the years tried to figure out how do we have the most just and fair way of applying uh the law and punishment.
• 25:49
  Um and we've also looked at should jail time, should prison time, uh, which is a response to a criminal activity you did, should that be ameliorated based on circumstances?
• 26:02
  And we've gone through a period of time where we said yes.
• 26:06
  We need to look at that.
• 26:07
  Is it based on racial decisions?
• 26:10
  Are people improperly imprisoned because of race?
• 26:13
  And if it is, how do we how do we fix that, right?
• 26:16
  So America is always going forward trying to fix our problems.
• 26:21
  It may be slow in coming, but that's one of the beauties of America is that we go forward trying to fix our problems, right?
• 26:29
  So when we come back, we're going to continue this crime and punishment.
• 26:33
  Um, because there's a lot more to it, and we'll be back in a minute.
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• 29:45
  Well, did you see Google quietly updated its AI principles removing its pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance?
• 29:54
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• 29:57
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• 30:10
  Now is our time, my fellow Americans.
• 30:13
  America Outloud dot news.
• 30:16
  Liberty and justice for all.
• 30:22
  All right, everybody, welcome back to the human equation.
• 30:25
  I'm your host, Joe Pangaro.
• 30:28
  So I apologize for the occasional cough I'm throwing out here, but i we get a lot of pollen here, and I have a lot of trees around me, and it's it seeps into everything, and it causes these tickly throat cough kind of things.
• 30:42
  So I apologize in advance.
• 30:43
  I'm trying to, you know, uh move away and and suppress that.
• 30:48
  So I'm enjoying a nice cup of coffee here as we talk.
• 30:51
  Uh, real quick, I want to tell you, I've mentioned it before.
• 30:54
  This is the 10th anniversary of the America Out Loud Network.
• 31:00
  This powerhouse for free speech.
• 31:02
  It is also the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, this powerhouse of freedom and liberty.
• 31:09
  All right.
• 31:10
  So a big giant celebration is going to take place in Nashville, Tennessee, on the dates of July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.
• 31:20
  And it's a dual celebration.
• 31:22
  We're going to celebrate the 10th anniversary of America Out Loud and the 250th anniversary of the United States of America.
• 31:29
  And you are all invited to the party.
• 31:32
  Uh, we are hosting a big event over multiple days in Nashville, Tennessee.
• 31:39
  Very pro-American kind of a town.
• 31:41
  We're gonna have guest speakers, we're gonna have events, we're gonna have rooftop fireworks, we're gonna have cocktail parties, we're gonna have all kinds of excellent interaction time between all of us here on this side of the microphone, and all of you on that side of the microphone.
• 31:57
  So take a look, go to the website, America Outloud.news, and look for uh Nashville 250.
• 32:06
  I think that's what it's being called.
• 32:07
  Click on it, you'll find it on the website, and you can see the dates.
• 32:11
  You can go for one day, two days, three days, you can go for all the days, all the events, uh, and it would be great to see everybody.
• 32:17
  I would love to meet you.
• 32:18
  I'll be there.
• 32:18
  I'm gonna be there the whole time.
• 32:20
  Uh I'm looking forward to hanging out with my uh co-hosts and the great Malcolm Out Loud and all of you who take your time, your very valuable time to spend it here with me and with the other hosts on the network.
• 32:33
  So it's a celebration of free speech, it's a celebration of America, and it's something we can all do positively together.
• 32:40
  All right, so go take a look uh on AmericaOutloud.news, find it, get your tickets, get your hotel, come on down, and let's have a great time uh together.
• 32:52
  Okay.
• 32:53
  So we're talking about crime and punishment in America and how it has changed, what has changed about it, what do we do to make it as fair as possible.
• 33:04
  So one of the areas that we we looked at once we had abundance, and we started to look back, was are we doing the right things for the right reason?
• 33:13
  Are we applying law equally and fairly?
• 33:17
  And we saw that in some cases, not all, but in some cases we were not.
• 33:22
  Did race have something to do with it?
• 33:25
  Uh was somebody looking at a black defendant and saying, well, uh this person's going to jail.
• 33:31
  We're a white person.
• 33:32
  No, we're not going to send a white person to jail.
• 33:34
  I don't think that ever was in a case to that extreme.
• 33:38
  I think where you saw the disparity was that a person would say, Well, we don't like African Americans, so therefore, you know, they're they're criminals and put them in, put them in jail for three years instead of two.
• 33:51
  And the white guy, well, he shouldn't have done what he did, but uh, you know, uh, just give him two years, right?
• 33:56
  I think is that true?
• 33:58
  I think that probably did happen.
• 33:59
  Right?
• 34:00
  So people that say that was it as widespread as people believe it to be.
• 34:04
  I don't think it is.
• 34:05
  Here's why, and here's what makes the difference.
• 34:08
  I've had a lot of people, you know, I write columns, I write not just Here for America uh out loud, but I also write uh books, I write articles for many different publications.
• 34:19
  I write for The Blue Magazine, which is a law enforcement magazine.
• 34:23
  Uh I got dozens and dozens of articles in there.
• 34:27
  Sorry.
• 34:28
  And one of the things that I that people have reached out to me and said the system is so unfair that we uh we just uh you look and see the jails are filled with African American people and uh this that and the other thing.
• 34:40
  Well, nobody wants to look at the statistics.
• 34:43
  The minute you look at statistics, which can help guide us, people get very upset and they start calling names because they don't like what these statistics tell us.
• 34:51
  So this is where uh the penal system and everything around it is very complicated because we need to take into account the fact that does racism get involved in the sentencing of an individual.
• 35:00
  The fact that does racism get involved in the sentencing of an individual?
• 35:06
  It should not.
• 35:06
  It should not.
• 35:08
  Whether someone is white, black, Asian should not matter in the sentencing they get for committing a crime of which they're found guilty or plead guilty.
• 35:08
  Whether someone is white, black, Asian, should not matter in the sentencing they get for committing a crime of which they're found guilty or plead guilty.
• 35:18
  That should not matter at all.
• 35:18
  That should not matter at all.
• 35:20
  Uh a hundred percent.
• 35:20
  A hundred percent.
• 35:21
  So I agree with that.
• 35:21
  So I agree with that.
• 35:23
  Usually what you find though, and here's where the difference comes in is that when when people
• 35:23
  Usually what you find though, and here's where the difference comes in, is that when people commit a crime, when people commit a crime and they're captured, they're caught, they're held to account, and they're found guilty or they plead guilty, what the court has to do is look at the offense that the person committed, then look at the person and see is this person always committing crimes?
• 35:52
  Because that's an indicator, a good indicator of future action is past action.
• 35:58
  Sorry about that.
• 35:59
  We really don't like that, but that's a reality.
• 36:02
  So if someone is a career criminal, as we used to call them, and they commit crime after crime after crime after crime, what's the chance that they will commit a future crime?
• 36:12
  Well, the chances go go way up.
• 36:15
  So do we sentence someone based on the potential that they'll do more?
• 36:18
  No, we don't.
• 36:19
  That's not right either, because someone could go straight after the first time they get in trouble and be a model citizen forever.
• 36:26
  So what the what the indication we get from someone's history, their criminal history, can be predictive of what they might do in the future.
• 36:38
  It doesn't mean they will, but we can also look at it and say, okay, this person has committed one, two, three, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five previous crimes, and they just committed another one.
• 36:53
  They are not getting it through their head that they can't commit crime.
• 36:59
  Therefore, if I have a choice of five years to ten years in prison, you've had 20 chances to go straight and you haven't.
• 37:08
  So therefore, you're going to be uh held accountable for this crime, and you're going to get the maximum punishment.
• 37:16
  So you might get 10 years instead of five.
• 37:18
  Now you get a uh another person who's never committed any crime before, and they come in front of the judge and they did the exact same crime.
• 37:27
  Well, the judge is going to look at the facts of the case that you were found guilty or pled guilty to.
• 37:33
  Then the judge is going to look and see, are you constantly committing crimes?
• 37:38
  Or is this the first time you committed a crime?
• 37:41
  Or did you commit a crime 20 years ago and now you committed a crime?
• 37:45
  It's less intense than a person who's constantly committing crime.
• 37:52
  So therefore, that person might get the five years instead of the 10.
• 37:56
  And you say, well, that's still a disparity, it's not fair.
• 37:59
  It's because of it's not because of race.
• 38:01
  If you had an African-American guy or girl who committed a crime the first time, and you had a white guy who committed 25 crimes, that white guy would get a heavier sentence because they're constantly committing crime, not because of their race.
• 38:18
  So if we accept the fact that yes, that probably did happen, race probably was a factor in sentencing and lots of things in the past.
• 38:27
  And could it possibly be part of things that are happening now?
• 38:31
  Yes, there's always that possibility, because there are still some bad people out there that look at things that way.
• 38:36
  In general, I can tell you from my own experience, we have seen the pendulum swing both ways.
• 38:44
  We get more strict as a society, then we get less strict.
• 38:49
  And we do look at criminal history of what people have done, and that is why some people are in jail or get jail time longer than other people, not because of race.
• 39:01
  You know, we're we're very cognizant of that today.
• 39:05
  All right, so we have to look at all those kind of factors.
• 39:08
  Now, sending someone to jail is a very serious thing to do.
• 39:14
  You're taking taking their life away from them, and it's a punishment.
• 39:19
  So we looked at punishment and said, should jail time be a punishment, or is there a societal responsibility and wisdom in using that time that a person is incarcerated, that they're in jail to try and help them better themselves so that they have a skill, that jail time is seen more as a chance for the person to heal and to learn their lesson and to learn skills and do things so that when they come out, uh they won't have to commit crime to feed themselves, or they won't have to commit illegal activities in order to afford the daily expenses of life.
• 40:04
  Um should uh our crime should it be punished, or should it be rehabilitated?
• 40:15
  And we had that big discussion, right?
• 40:17
  We saw that because we're combining all of these things.
• 40:20
  Are people being sentenced harshly because of their race?
• 40:24
  Are they being sentenced harshly because of their economic situation?
• 40:28
  Um, are they being sentenced uh because for a million factors other than their own personal behavior throughout the course of their life and what they've done and been convicted of.
• 40:39
  And we were very cognizant of trying to figure that out to come to the proper and just solution, right?
• 40:50
  So one of the things that we talked about before was the death penalty.
• 40:53
  That is such a heavy duty penalty in a country that values life, right?
• 40:59
  We value life, but we're willing to take someone's life if they committed a certain thing.
• 41:05
  That's because we value life so highly that if there are certain things you did that are so agregious that you should forfeit your life.
• 41:16
  Well, that's a that's uh we've seen this go death penalty was everywhere, and then we saw as this whole thought about crime and punishment really came into focus in the 1960s, we saw a lot of places in the 60s and 70s get rid of the death penalty.
• 41:33
  No, we have no right to take anyone's life uh we'll put them in jail for the rest of their lives.
• 41:40
  Now, that might be the just thing to do.
• 41:43
  You know, I've gone back and forth myself with the death penalty, and the reason I go back and forth is because my religious teachings, my basis of my religious teachings tells me that the death penalty should never take place, no matter what the person did.
• 42:00
  Never take place, no matter what the person did.
• 42:03
  And I have a personal conflict with that.
• 42:03
  And I have a personal conflict with that, because if somebody rapes and murders somebody and buries them in a shallow grave out in the woods, and we catch that person, shouldn't they pay the ultimate penalty for that action?
• 42:07
  Because if somebody rapes and murders somebody and buries them in a shallow grave out in the woods, and we catch that person, shouldn't they pay the ultimate penalty for that action?
• 42:18
  They decided someone else's life.
• 42:18
  They decided someone else's life.
• 42:20
  That person had no choice in what happened to them.
• 42:20
  That person had no choice in what happened to them.
• 42:23
  They were raped and murdered and buried in a grave.
• 42:23
  They were raped and murdered and buried in a grave.
• 42:25
  You took their life away.
• 42:25
  You took their life away.
• 42:27
  What punishment is more fitting than giving up.
• 42:27
  What punishment is more fitting than giving up your own life, right?
• 42:31
  That's the thought in my head.
• 42:33
  My religious underpinning tells me, no, they can be punished, they can be kept away from everybody in prison for the rest of their life where they can't hurt anybody else.
• 42:44
  But you shouldn't take their life.
• 42:46
  You know, you're not God.
• 42:47
  You shouldn't take somebody's life.
• 42:49
  And this has been, this has woven its way into the thinking in the criminal justice world.
• 42:55
  Is it right or wrong?
• 42:57
  So in many states, we saw the death penalty disappear.
• 43:01
  No, we're not going to have death penalty.
• 43:03
  Have life without parole.
• 43:04
  And in the states where that happened, you would think that the population is more open to that, right?
• 43:11
  Because they would vote for people who would say we're going to do that in our state legislature, we're not going to have death penalty anymore.
• 43:17
  But then we see a bunch of other states bring it back really strong, like Texas and Florida.
• 43:24
  Texas and Florida execute lots and lots of people for their crimes.
• 43:30
  Lots and lots of people.
• 43:31
  Like they're head and shoulders above everybody else in the country for executing criminals.
• 43:36
  And the thinking in those states is more traditional that if you've committed a heinous crime against other people, you should pay the ultimate penalty.
• 43:46
  And there's a lot of religious people there who go along with that.
• 43:50
  Me, I go back and forth.
• 43:52
  I'm being honest with you.
• 43:53
  You know, I see it and I say, okay, if we're going to put them in prison for the rest of their life and they're never going to get out, they're never going to be able to victimize anybody else again, I could probably be okay with that.
• 44:07
  Because living the rest of your life in prison would have to be a miserable, horrible penalty.
• 44:12
  Right?
• 44:13
  And that creates another conversation.
• 44:15
  Is that undue punishment to do a 30-year-old guy commits a crime and you put him in jail until he's 90 and he lives behind bars?
• 44:22
  Is that is that cruel and unusual?
• 44:25
  Or would it be more compassionate to execute them?
• 44:29
  So they don't have to suffer for those 60 years in prison.
• 44:32
  Yeah, it's it's comes back to us as human beings.
• 44:36
  We're trying to understand what is right and just and what is fair and compassionate at the same time.
• 44:44
  It creates a difficult combination of thoughts because we have to protect our society from people who would harm us.
• 44:53
  Because like I said, there's about 20% of the population out there that will harm you no matter what, because that's just the way they live their life.
• 45:01
  Should they roam free amongst us where they can rape, rob, murder, hurt, injure, kill us and our families and our children, or should we put those people away?
• 45:14
  Or if they've been particularly heinous, should we execute them?
• 45:18
  The fact that as Americans we have this conversation tells me we are still a compassionate people.
• 45:27
  We are blending religious beliefs with reality beliefs on the ground about how people behave.
• 45:34
  We are trying to be justice, trying to provide justice for the victim and for the accused.
• 45:40
  We are trying to incorporate a punishment that is also a rehabilitation.
• 45:46
  It is a hybrid of probably what went on in the past.
• 45:50
  When you got locked up and they threw you in jail, they didn't care about you.
• 45:53
  Your conditions didn't matter.
• 45:54
  Don't we worry about prisoner conditions now?
• 45:57
  Don't we worry about the food they get, the housing, the medical care, all the things they get.
• 46:02
  They never worried about that in the past.
• 46:03
  They threw you in a cell and gave you bread and water once in a while.
• 46:07
  That was your, you know, you were being punished for what you did.
• 46:12
  So we've come a long way with crime and punishment.
• 46:17
  And we're trying to find that fine line of justice and injustice and do the right thing.
• 46:23
  And like I said, I've seen it go from one to the other pendulum swing to where we were very, very draconian, but we were very severe in our punishment to where we got very, very liberal, and then it swung back, back and forth.
• 46:38
  And here's the reality, though, and here's why it goes back and forth.
• 46:42
  Not only the abundance idea where we have more time to think about things and we want to be, we want to get it right.
• 46:48
  But the reality is human nature, part of the human equation is this.
• 46:56
  If you have someone who is prone to committing crimes, you have somebody that's that's just the way they think.
• 47:02
  They need something, they steal it.
• 47:04
  They want something, they take it.
• 47:06
  They don't care about how it affects the victim.
• 47:08
  They don't care.
• 47:09
  You know, somebody breaks into your house.
• 47:11
  If you're not been a victim of a burglary, then you know, you can understand, oh, they broke in, they stole the TV and a lot of their stuff.
• 47:18
  Until you had somebody break into your house, go through your things, through your kids' rooms, through your rooms, right?
• 47:26
  And go through all your stuff and steal your things.
• 47:29
  The feeling of victimization and trauma that people experience because of that can be lingering and long term.
• 47:36
  That's it's it's very serious when people are victimized by crime.
• 47:41
  When they're robbed in the street, a gun stuck in their face, or they're stuck with a knife.
• 47:45
  These are traumatic, terrible things.
• 47:48
  So we're trying to figure out how to do this right, and we have this percentage of our population that doesn't care about you and your family.
• 47:56
  So how do we do the right thing?
• 47:57
  And it's been this back and forth pull.
• 48:00
  Because we are a decent people, we're trying to do the right thing.
• 48:05
  We're trying to protect everybody.
• 48:06
  If we can rehab somebody, we want to give them a second chance, right?
• 48:10
  What did I say before?
• 48:11
  You go and apologize to the court when you got caught doing something, you're gonna probably get a lesser of a sentence.
• 48:17
  You're gonna you're probably gonna have a better experience with law enforcement if you behave that way.
• 48:22
  Because everybody, and I don't mean every single human being.
• 48:25
  What I'm talking about is for the most part, people are good and decent people, and if somebody did something wrong and they're sorry for it, we feel bad, we're gonna give them another chance.
• 48:35
  Right?
• 48:35
  That's the whole thing.
• 48:36
  Everybody deserves a second chance.
• 48:38
  We hear that mantra.
• 48:39
  Everybody deserves a second chance.
• 48:41
  Well, most people do.
• 48:43
  Depends on what you've done.
• 48:44
  If you committed a murder during a robbery, I don't know if you deserve a second chance.
• 48:50
  You need to be punished for that.
• 48:51
  You took somebody's life.
• 48:52
  What I said as a younger person, uh, even before I got into law enforcement, you know, I started thinking about these things, and that's why I chose a career in law enforcement, was to try and, you know, be uh be an agent for good in the world.
• 49:00
  I chose a career in law enforcement was to try and you know be a be an agent for good in the world.
• 49:07
  How do I make a difference in the world?
• 49:07
  How do I make a difference in the world?
• 49:09
  Well, helping protect the innocent and the vulnerable from the bad and the criminal was something that was very appealing to me.
• 49:09
  Well, helping protect the innocent and the vulnerable from the bad and the criminal was something that was very appealing to me, and that's why I went into that into that field of work.
• 49:16
  And that's why I went into that into that field of work.
• 49:20
  But when we look at this, we say, what is it that we really can do as as a society?
• 49:20
  But when we look at this, we say, what is it that we really can do as as a society?
• 49:26
  Well, we can keep thinking about it.
• 49:26
  Well, we can keep thinking about it, but as a kid.
• 49:29
  But as a kid, I used to say to myself, if somebody murdered somebody, I would say, well, when that person can get up out of the grave and go back to their family, that's when the criminal can get out of jail.
• 49:39
  Now, that's very simplistic young person thinking.
• 49:44
  But I think there's also some wisdom in there because isn't that really what we're trying to do?
• 49:50
  We're trying to balance what the person did with the punishment that they get and how it affects the victims.
• 49:57
  So I don't remember what it was that I saw, but there had to be something I saw on the news.
• 50:03
  So I used to watch the news as a kid, even as a kid, I was like a news junkie, and I watched the news every night and see what's going on.
• 50:09
  And there was some innocent person who was murdered, and you know, the family of the murderer came out.
• 50:16
  Oh, he's a good person, he just had a tough life, and he had a and I remember sitting there going, yeah, but that that man that he killed is dead, he's in a grave, he's moldering in a grave, and his family doesn't have him because this person decided to rob them and kill them.
• 50:32
  So F this person, put them in jail, execute them, kill them, get rid of them, punish them for what they did.
• 50:39
  And that was that was a powerful thought in my head.
• 50:43
  And the the response to that to these people saying, Oh, you know, you should be compassionate to these killers.
• 50:48
  Said, well, okay, let's be compassionate.
• 50:51
  When the victim can hop up out of their grave and go about their life and go back to their family and their friends, everything is back to normal, then the killer can get out of jail.
• 51:02
  So that is really equating um actions with consequences with um mitigation.
• 51:13
  I think that's the three things that are put there.
• 51:15
  The actions, you kill somebody, consequences you go to prison or death penalty, and mitigation is well, the victim got up out of their grave and they're back with their family.
• 51:24
  Unrealistic, doesn't happen.
• 51:27
  But that was the kind of thinking that started me down the path of okay, what should we be doing here?
• 51:34
  So I can't tell you how many times I was out on the road as a patrol officer, and I had the option of using my discretion to issue a ticket, make an arrest, uh, do something with somebody who had committed some kind of a crime or some violation or whatever.
• 51:53
  And I took into account everything, um, everything I possibly could, because I wanted to make the right decision for society and for the people involved, right?
• 52:06
  And that that sounds very uh, you know, very theoretical and you know, oh, this that, but that's really how I looked at the job.
• 52:13
  And for all you cop haters out there, I can tell you that is how most cops look at their work.
• 52:20
  Now, we started out by saying experience guides us.
• 52:24
  Well, in a lot of times you might see a gruff officer, because we get to see people as they really are, not as we imagine that they are or we hope they are or whatever.
• 52:35
  We see them exactly as they are, and that can certainly change your opinions as to how people behave and what should go on.
• 52:45
  Um, this is where all of this comes together.
• 52:50
  So most of your cops that are out there, the men and women of law enforcement, they are trying to do the right thing.
• 52:55
  They are trying to balance justice with fairness with holding people accountable, right?
• 53:02
  And that is what our criminal justice system has been doing for a very, very long time.
• 53:06
  That's why we go back and forth, back and forth.
• 53:09
  So when we see this bigger cultural change, and we see people who are coming to our country and they're not assimilating, they're bringing their previous country's practices here, and we see this clash of culture.
• 53:27
  Well, criminal justice is also cultural.
• 53:30
  How do we deal with it?
• 53:31
  How do we change?
• 53:32
  So I saw an article the other day.
• 53:34
  I think they said in the United Kingdom in the past four years, four years, four fifteen months or something like that, there were 1,800 uh more rapes than there ever had been before, and the uh the perpetrators were a lot of the new migrants, illegal migrants that came to their countries.
• 53:57
  Now, this is going to be filtered into the factor.
• 54:00
  Well, you know, rape is a very serious crime.
• 54:02
  It is something that can traumatize someone for their entire life, it can change their relationships, it's it's a horrific crime.
• 54:10
  And you have 1,800 more victims than you had previously.
• 54:15
  So this causes us to now look and go, okay, what caused this and how do we fix it?
• 54:20
  So the whole idea of crime and punishment was the idea that if you made uh punishment very severe for a crime, people would think twice before they commit it, therefore you save victims the trouble of being victimized.
• 54:35
  If someone did do a crime and committed it, the punishment should be so severe that the person has uh has punishment extracted from them, they're put behind bars or their life is taken very serious, uh, so that there's justice for the victim there, and the message it sends out to society is we as a society will not stand for this kind of behavior.
• 54:58
  We will hold you accountable up to your taking your life, right?
• 55:02
  So then you don't commit crimes.
• 55:04
  That's the whole the whole uh idea of the system is to protect innocent people from criminal activity.
• 55:12
  So we've been we've been around the horn here on this topic.
• 55:16
  Um I'm looking at it as as part of the bigger culture.
• 55:21
  So where are we now?
• 55:23
  Well, now, right now I think we're in a in a phase of weakness against criminal activity.
• 55:30
  We see all this no bail.
• 55:32
  You know, bail is supposed to be so that the person uh shows up to court, they post a bail so they have stake in the game.
• 55:39
  Well, we know that in our modern world, uh people get arrested five, six, seven, eight, twenty times, they post bail and they still commit crimes and they take off and their failure to appear, and we have to go find them and lock them up.
• 55:51
  And I think one of the fundamental realities is that this weakness we have on crime is not causing criminals to say, oh, the society is being nicer to me.
• 56:00
  Nicere to me.
• 56:00
  They're taking things under con under consideration.
• 56:01
  They're taking things under consideration.
• 56:03
  So I am gonna go get a job and I'll be a good member of society.
• 56:03
  So I am gonna go get a job and I'll be a good member of society.
• 56:08
  That's not how human nature works.
• 56:08
  That's not how human nature works.
• 56:11
  People that are prone to being criminals, when they see weak law enforcement response, when they see weak uh courts that don't held them to account, they don't do less crime.
• 56:11
  People that are prone to being criminals when they see weak law enforcement response, when they see weak uh courts that don't held them to account, they don't do less crime, they do more crime, they victimize more people.
• 56:21
  They do more crime.
• 56:23
  They victimize more people.
• 56:25
  Um so abundance tells us we should be more understanding, more.
• 56:26
  So abundance tells us we should be more understanding, more compassionate to the criminal.
• 56:31
  But the reality is we should be first and foremost understanding of and compassionate to the victims and hold people accountable for what they do.
• 56:41
  This weakness in the way we respond to crime is only going to cause more crime, more tragedy, and more victims.
• 56:49
  And that's the way we see it here at the human equation.
• 56:52
  So listen, thanks for being here.
• 56:54
  Uh think about this, and you be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.
• 56:57
  We'll see you down the road.