It's a pleasure to see
such a nice full room,
and I want to welcome you.
I'm Vince Rougeau.
I'm the dean here at
Boston College Law School.
And it's my great pleasure
to welcome you all here today
for what I think will be
an extraordinary program
with a wonderful
group of experts
about a topic, criminal
justice reform, that
affects our families, our
friends, neighbors, colleagues,
and all of our communities.
We're truly fortunate to have
prosecutors, legislators,
and members of law enforcement
here today with us, who
have shown that they're willing
to break down barriers, upend
traditional notions of
prosecutorial action,
and collaborate to
achieve justice.
Now, I think as everyone on
this panel genuinely believes,
there's more to do in the realm
of criminal justice reform
to ensure a system that is more
just and equitable for all.
So we want to have plenty of
time to hear from everyone.
But I do want to share a
little bit of information
about our esteemed panelists.
First, we have two Boston
College Law School alumni--
United States Senator Ed
Markey, and Middlesex County--
[APPLAUSE]
--and Middlesex County
District Attorney, Marian Ryan.
[APPLAUSE]
We have a member of our
Rappaport Center Advisory
Board, Suffolk County District
Attorney Rachael Rollins.
[APPLAUSE]
And we have a former
Rappaport Institute Urban
Scholar, Middlesex
Sheriff Peter Koutoujian.
[APPLAUSE]
Finally, Senator
Will Brownsberger
has the distinction
of having served
in the attorney general's office
under our Rappaport Center
Advisory Board Chair, former
Attorney General Scott
Harshbarger, and
with, I might add,
Rappaport Center Executive
Director, Lissy Medvedow.
[APPLAUSE]
So I'll begin with
Senator Markey, who's
been in Congress for
44 years, 37 of which
have been spent in the
House of Representatives,
and the last seven
in the Senate.
In addition to his steadfast
work on criminal justice
reform, Senator Markey has been
a leading champion of climate
legislation, and
a national leader
in the area of
telecommunications, technology,
privacy, gun safety, and
nuclear nonproliferation.
A special thank you
to Senator Markey,
who earlier today
helped to launch what
will be BC Law's first podcast.
Senator Markey also
has the distinction
of being a Double Eagle.
Middlesex County District
Attorney Marian Ryan
is a career prosecutor,
both trial and appellate.
She was elected Middlesex
County DA In 2014.
This is the largest--
Middlesex County is the largest
county in the Commonwealth,
with 54 cities and
towns and 21 colleges,
including Newton
and BC Law School.
DA Ryan has been a leader in
domestic violence prevention
and prosecution, conducts
workshops on workplace safety,
and has developed
important initiatives
to keep kids and seniors safe.
DA Ryan is the recipient
of many awards,
including two from BC law--
the BC Law School David
Nelson Public Service Award,
and the BC Law School Women's
Law Center Achievement Award.
Her undergraduate degree
is from Emmanuel College.
Suffolk County District
Attorney Rachael Rollins
took office in January 2019
as the first woman of color
to be elected DA
in Suffolk County.
Two months later,
she issued a memo
which outlined designated
misdemeanors that would not
be prosecuted, as
part of an initiative
to address and provide
alternative approaches
to the underlying
causes of crime,
including substance abuse
disorder, mental illness,
and poverty.
Prior to her
election, DA Rollins
served as chief legal counsel
of the Massachusetts Port
Authority, general
counsel of the MBTA,
and the Massachusetts
Department of Transportation,
the first woman to
do so, and served
as assistant US attorney.
She is a graduate of
Northeastern University School
of Law and UMass Amherst.
In the eight years
since taking office,
Middlesex County
Sheriff Peter Koutoujian
has been nationally
recognized for his work
on the opioid crisis, and his
implementation of a medically
assisted treatment
program, as well as
for his vision in opening
a housing unit dedicated
to military veterans, and a
special unit for young adult
offenders.
In January, Sheriff Koutoujian
began his first term
as president of the Major
County Sheriffs of America,
while simultaneously serving as
president of the Massachusetts
Sheriffs' Association.
He's a graduate of
Bridgewater State University,
the New England School of Law,
and Harvard's Kennedy School
of Government.
Last, but certainly not least,
is Senator Will Brownsberger,
today's moderator.
Senator Brownsberger is a
longtime public servant.
He was elected in 2012 to
the Massachusetts Senate,
having previously served as a
state representative for five
years, a Belmont Selectman,
and as mentioned,
as assistant attorney general.
He is currently president
pro tempore of the Senate,
and spent five years as Senate
chair of the Joint Committee
on the Judiciary.
Apropo of today's program,
Senator Brownsberger
was instrumental in
drafting and negotiating
the Criminal Justice
Reform Act that was signed
into law on April 13, 2019.
And here's what Senator
Brownsberger had to say.
Oop.
Yes.
Congratulations are
definitely in order.
[APPLAUSE]
Here's what he had to say
upon signing of the bill,
and I quote, "The agreement
we have reached today
is about lifting people up
instead of locking people up,
and it is about cutting the
chains that hold people down
when they are trying to
get back on their feet.
And it is about better
protecting the public
from drugs and violence.
At the same time, we
are deeply concerned
about high incarceration rates
in communities of poverty
and color, and we understand
that the criminal justice
system has become just too
hard for people to navigate.
It mires people in cycles of
frustration from which they
cannot escape.
Most issues in criminal justice
involve hard judgment calls,
and many are deeply
controversial," unquote.
So now I bring you
Senator Will Brownsberger
to lead us in a conversation
about those hard judgment calls
and controversial issues
in criminal justice.
Welcome to Looking Ahead.
Thanks.
Thanks [INAUDIBLE].
[APPLAUSE]
So I'm going to start--
I spent a lot of
time campaigning
in front of the Rindge Towers
Housing Project in Cambridge.
I spent a lot of time just
hanging out by the entrance
there.
And I had a lot of time to talk
to the security guard there.
And he bedeviled me with
the following riddle.
What is it that nobody
wants, but if you get it,
you really don't
want to lose it?
In a roomful of law students--
I never-- I don't
think I actually ever
got the answer to that.
I think he had to
tell me after like--
because we had hours
to talk about it,
and I couldn't quite get to it.
Start calling on people, Will.
Do that.
Make them stand.
Yeah.
Ha ha.
He's doing it.
No.
Yeah.
That was you.
No?
No idea.
The right to vote.
Well, the right to vote--
there's a good one.
No.
A court case.
Nobody wants a court case,
but if you get a court case,
you don't want to
lose it, right?
Oh.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
And to sort of--
to turn it into this--
today's conversation, what
is it that a lot of people
stumble into, but
a lot of people
really have a hard
time getting out of?
Court justice?
The criminal justice system.
And that's the thing.
It's-- to call it a system is
a little bit of a misnomer.
Because once people-- people
who are really involved,
who are involved in
a cycle of offending,
are simultaneously at multiple
different points in the system.
They probably have open cases.
They may be incarcerated.
They may be on probation
or parole at the same time.
They're just involved in a
whole lot of relationships
with a whole lot of
people and institutions,
and it becomes extremely
sticky and tangled and hard
for them to get out of.
We nonetheless
persist in thinking
of the system as a
series of stages.
There's pre-arrest, post-arrest,
incarceration, post-sentence,
and so forth.
But so today we are
going to break--
organize the conversation a
little bit in those phases,
and talk about the
kinds of things that are
happening at different stages.
But always bear in mind that
any individual is actually
going to be simultaneously
likely involved
in multiple stages, and it
becomes a set of relationships.
But DA Ryan, I want to--
I want to-- I thought I might
start with you as a prosecutor,
because it's an
interesting place to start.
What sort of things should we
be doing to keep people out
of this system?
And I want to ask both
DAs The same question.
So there's a lot of things.
As you mentioned, Senator, most
of the time when people find
themselves in the
criminal justice system,
they've already interacted
with lots of different places.
Maybe they have some
mental health issues.
Maybe they have some
substance issues.
Maybe they've just
been poor, and they've
ended up interacting
with a lot of systems.
Maybe if they're young,
they came from a family
where they didn't
get a lot of support.
So maybe they've been
involved with DCF
and those kinds of places.
So when we look at prevention
we try to do two things,
one of which is find out
which of those things
brought people here, and how
can we way back on the front end
be doing something
about those things?
So how can we be
working on helping kids
to have a better
environment, figuring out
what kids are most at
risk, and what can we
be doing to help them?
How can we identify mental
health and substance abuse
issues early on?
And then, what's
the other piece?
Talking to kids about--
and I spent the
morning doing this--
kids really understanding
how valuable they are.
It's said that kids
can survive anything
if they have at least one adult
who's really invested in them.
And when we see right
now so many kids,
it isn't even just
the usual things--
bad things that can happen
to kids-- it's the trauma.
We have 30,000 kids
in Massachusetts today
who have witnessed a parent
die from an opioid overdose.
How does that change
your life going forward?
We know what the
research tells us
about the genetic link
in substance abuse.
It's why most of
us know families
where generation after
generation have had issues.
So shouldn't we be at the
front dealing with that piece?
And when you spend a lot
of your life, especially
your early life, seeing that
other people have things
you don't have,
that doesn't really
foster following the rules
and investing in the system.
So how do we level the
playing field for kids?
We spend, in our office,
a lot of our time
doing education, being out in
the schools, talking to kids.
Some of it is pure education.
They don't know how
much trouble they
can get into with some things,
how things can go badly.
When we tell kids, as
we do all the time,
try to have a healthy
relationship-- if you've never
seen one, you don't
know how to do that.
When we tell people talk
to an adult about that,
if you don't have a
trusted adult to do that,
you can't go someplace else.
So really the bulk
of our work-- we
are a business that
unlike any other business
does not want repeat customers.
The bulk of our work is
figuring out how do we
get in as early as possible
and change people's outlook,
help them with the things
that lead them, very often,
to the criminal justice system?
Thank you.
DA Rollins, you've been in
this space a lot now too.
Yeah.
So we don't want repeat
customers, but we have them.
We have an incredibly
high recidivism rate
for some low-level crimes.
And this system that the
senator was talking about,
if this were manufacturing cars,
would be shut down immediately.
If you had a 67% failure
rate for a car manufacturer,
they wouldn't be able
to make cars anymore.
I think we have to
remember none of you got
to choose who you were born to.
Not a single one of
you in utero gets
to say, Rockefellers, please.
No.
You pop out, and you are--
like a slide, a water slide.
You come out, and
that's where you are.
And depending on who your
parents are-- that was graphic.
I apologize.
Maybe not-- a
gentle water slide.
You get it.
Who your parents are,
where you live, what
your housing situation is--
this isn't me speaking,
this is the Boston Globe.
Our Boston public schools are
segregated-- failing schools.
So I was fortunate enough
to go to Buckingham, Browne,
& Nichols because
my parents worked
really hard to get me there.
Maybe your family sent
you to South Boston High
School or somewhere else.
And where you live,
what neighborhood you're
in, whether there's
violence there,
what trauma you see, whether
there's environmental racism,
which is very, very real.
So I think, like DA Ryan,
all of these systems
are often involved
in people's lives.
You have DCF worker.
You might have the Department
of Mental Health in your life.
You might have the Department
of Youth and Families.
And those systems--
Boston Public School System--
are failing these
individuals often.
And so are the parents as well.
And we, as the
criminal legal system,
are the last catch basin at the
end of several failing systems.
And what I said out loud
was in the first instance,
for nonviolent
nonserious crimes,
rather than sending
them to him, who
does a great job as a Sheriff--
and remember,
there's a difference
between whether you go to
the House of the Corrections
or the Department
of Corrections,
which he'll talk about--
I want to see if we can get to
the root cause of the problem,
so we never see you again.
Unless, DA Ryan, we hire
you to help us work in our--
if you're a
non-lawyer, community
engagement department,
investigator, victim witness
advocate, something like that.
But we have a system.
I don't think it's
broken, Senator.
It's working exactly the
way it was set up to work.
And we have to tinker
from the inside to change.
Thank you.
Senator Markey, do you want
to talk about this at all
from a federal perspective?
Well, I agree.
I agree with Rachel.
The system is broken--
what Marian said, it's just--
it's broken.
We incarcerated 2 million mostly
African-American young men
in the 1990s because of the war
on drugs, war on crack cocaine.
We treated it differently
from powdered cocaine.
So we owe an apology
to an entire generation
of African-American young men.
The system failed them.
When the opioid crisis hit white
America over the last 10 years,
the cry was, well, we need
treatment, not incarceration.
Well, when it was
minority young men,
it was, we need
incarceration, not treatment.
And then when they
were incarcerated,
they went to our jails.
They went to our
Houses of Correction,
which then became the primary
place where drug treatment was
being provided in America, and
without the resources to be
able to deal with it, and
without the ability to be able
to ensure that it's
not just a big U-turn--
once they go out,
they come back again.
So this is deeply
rooted in our society,
where we criminalized
the, quote,
"crimes" which communities
of color were committing,
and then when it moved over
to the white community,
it was not so much.
So we first have to begin
with the recognition of what
we did, what our laws
did, what our system did.
Because then that leads to
a loss of voting rights.
It leads to a checkbox on an
employment application, that
then serves as a further
bar to reentry into society.
It serves as an
impediment to being
able to receive Pell Grants that
might help you to reestablish
yourself in the
community, and you have
this stigma your whole life.
So what Rachael is doing
here, what Marian is doing,
is kind of reinventing
the whole system.
And even-- and I'm working
with Peter in Middlesex County,
it's to make sure that
the funding is there
for the medically assisted
treatment, which is necessary.
Because the overwhelming
majority of people who are
in prison have some
drug-related issue--
the overwhelming majority.
So we have to deal with
that, put it front center,
and say we're going to
deal with it up front--
prevention.
We're going to
deal with treatment
when they're in the system.
And we're going to
make sure they don't
lose the treatment afterwards.
Because if you don't keep your
coverage for drug treatment
as you leave the system,
you're 120 times more
likely to have a problem
within the first two weeks
after leaving the system
than anyone else in society.
And you're coming right back
in, as Rachael just said.
It's a failure.
When you have a
2/3 failure rate,
there's something wrong with it.
So we call that our
criminal justice system,
but it's really a
criminal injustice
system in terms of
how we treat those
who are most affected by it.
And so that's why I'm so honored
to be here, because these are--
Massachusetts is leading
the way in trying
to rethink all these
issues, and the leaders
of that whole movement are
sitting in front of you today.
By the way, I just want a little
footnote for the audience here.
Federal criminal justice system
versus local criminal justice
system--
the federal criminal
justice system actually
accounts for only about 10%
of the incarcerated population
in the United States.
90% of it is at the lower level.
In the federal criminal
justice system, drug offenses--
larger drug dealing,
trafficking,
manufacturing-- account for
roughly half of the population.
And so in the federal
system, the drug issues
are front and center,
as the senator said.
At the local level, as
the senator also said,
a lot of people,
the vast majority
have some kind of
substance abuse problem.
But their current offense
is not necessarily
a drug-related offense.
Maybe they committed
some kind of larceny
to support their habit, or
some other kind of offense.
Or they just got into
some kind of fight
because they were intoxicated.
But their intoxication is
a cause of their offense,
but it's not the offense
that they're there for.
So I think one of the
things that's interesting
is the work that Senator
Markey and Senator
Koutoujian have been doing on--
Not yet.
Is he a Senator here?
Sheriff.
Sheriff Koutoujian.
I've been-- sorry--
I've been doing on--
I'm not sure I'm ready.
You're ready.
You're ready.
--health care for people who
are coming into the criminal
justice system, because although
there are differences between--
big differences between the
federal and local systems,
the collaboration there
at a funding level
can be extremely important.
And we're grateful for
Senator Markey's help on that.
But why don't you talk
about-- a little bit
about what's going on, and
then you can comment on it
some more.
Sure.
So honestly, thank
you so much for this.
I hope you guys appreciate
this is a very historic moment,
with the exception of
me, to see two district
attorneys and Senator Markey
and Senator Brownsberger here
for the Rappaport program.
I'm a Rappaport fellow myself.
I love the program.
It has done a great deal for me.
Two other things.
I didn't go to Boston
College Law School,
but I studied for the bar here,
and I passed the first time.
So thank you.
For some of the older
folks, it was the old SMH.
Remember the old SMH?
It's now long defunct.
And I also-- one other shout-out
to a very dear friend of mine,
Professor Bob Bloom, who sent me
my very first $25 back in 1996
when I was an upstart
running for state
representative and no one
believed in me at the time.
But Bob Bloom actually
didn't even know me.
He researched me, and he
sent me a few dollars.
So Bob, thank you.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Let's just talk a little bit
about the population we're
dealing with, we're
all dealing with,
especially those that
are incarcerated.
80% have some
self-reported or otherwise
drug or alcohol addiction.
About 50% of my population have
a history of mental health.
When you consider the
co-occurrence rate
or the dual diagnosis
rate of those
that have a mental health issue.
And consequently an addiction
issue, it's about 75%,
78% at any time in my facility.
Let's also understand this.
It was said by both
district attorneys.
What we've been
doing has not worked,
and it's time for new ways
to think about doing things.
Sheriff's offices,
really by statute,
are responsible for when someone
is sentenced and sent to me,
either pretrial or incarcerated
for that house sentence.
I get them.
I treat them.
I keep them safe.
I keep others safe.
I keep the community safe.
And then I turn them back out.
And that's really
my responsibility.
But as I have said, as we have
all said, what has been done
has not been working.
And so now you find
those in corrections
are doing a lot more inside,
but stretching out, reaching
before they get to us to
work with communities,
as well as reaching out
afterwards to support them
during their reentry.
I want to say one thing.
Senator Ed Markey did
come to the Middlesex
jail and House of Corrections.
He sat down with some of
my offenders inside, some
of the incarcerated men inside,
and listened to their stories
about their struggles
with mental health
and their struggles
with addiction.
He listened.
You've got a lot of people
that are around this world
making decisions for
all these people,
but they don't actually sit
down and talk to the people.
A United States senator came to
a jail to speak with the people
that he was developing
legislation for,
and so really deserves a
great deal of effort that.
No one does that, right?
[APPLAUSE]
We're doing a few different
programs in Middlesex--
I'll tell you very briefly.
One, we're a pilot project
for Arnold Ventures.
We've got a data-driven
justice initiative.
This is-- we used to call
them super-utilizers.
Then they became-- now we
call them familiar faces.
These are the people that
cycle through our system--
criminal justice, places
of incarcerations,
our emergency rooms,
our police lockups,
continually, and really
never get any attention.
They're obviously in crisis.
They're struggling
out in the community.
They're not getting
anything right,
but they're not
getting the support,
the services, the resources.
They're not getting any
attention out there.
And the only time
they're ever noticed
is when they're
arrested, when they're
taken to an emergency room,
when they're come to my jail.
That's the only time
they ever get noticed.
Sad.
So in this program, the
idea is with Arnold Ventures
to break down the silos
between all these people
that are collecting data-- as
police departments, ambulance
companies, our emergency rooms,
or places of corrections,
to be able to identify in a
de-identified initiative first,
just to see how many people
are flying around in this area
that we're not
getting attention.
And the idea is not to do
anything more than just
to get them the
services that they need.
I'll give you one
proof of concept
so you can understand
what we're talking about.
In Cambridge, we did
a proof of concept.
24-year-old female
over four-year--
26-year-old female over a
four-year period of time.
She had 28 engagements
only in Cambridge,
by the way, not
outside of Cambridge.
There might have been many more.
We don't know-- only in
Cambridge with first responders
and with police.
Now, you'd think someone
like that might be noticed.
She wouldn't get noticed.
Number one, because they're
two different silos.
And even beyond that,
those 24 first responder
were all trips to the hospitals.
No one ever noticed.
No one ever gave--
was able to step in and help
her get the support she needed.
So 14 trips to emergency rooms
that we know of in Cambridge,
14 engagements with police.
You know what the greatest
tragedy of that is?
Out of the 14, only one was she
actually charged with a crime.
The other 13 she was
a witness and a victim
of crime, which,
quite honestly, is
quite consistent
with what we know
with people that struggle with
mental illness and substance
use.
They're much more likely to be
victims or witnesses to crime
than perpetrators of crime.
And then the last
thing that we've done
is to create a Middlesex
Restoration Center.
So the idea is you divert
them on the front end,
but then where do
you divert them to?
And so our system
is so disjointed,
where do you bring them to?
You bring them to
the emergency room.
It's the only place
you can bring them to.
Well, that's the
wrong place for them,
because they're clogging
up our emergency room.
It's very expensive.
And they don't get the help
that they need, certainly
in a spectrum.
And so the idea is to
create a restoration center.
They have a few of these around
the country, in Bexar County
and in Tucson,
Arizona, where there's
a place where police, instead
of having to make that arrest
and charge them with a crime,
which then can escalate
their situation much worse as
they go through this system,
you can actually get them
to a restoration center
where they can manage their--
you could medically managed
withdrawal, mental health
stabilization, and the referral
to the services that they
need, so they don't have
to be arrested again by police.
They don't have to go to an
emergency room, which will only
exacerbate the things that are
making their lives so difficult
right then.
So the idea is even
in corrections,
we're stretching way
beyond our walls,
because everyone has
to have a part of this.
And the system is so
disjointed, one handles it here.
They pass on.
Another handles it there.
And then the resources
aren't anywhere in particular
to be able to help them
through this continuum
of their engagement with
the criminal justice system.
DA Rollins.
Yeah.
So-- and one thing I
just wanted to add,
shout-out to Commissioner
Evans, who was the commissioner
in Boston--
wonderful man, who is
now your police chief,
and to Anthony
Benedetti at CPCS.
But-- so the sheriff
gets them when
it's usually up to 2 and 1/2
years that they're serving,
or pretrial.
And then the Department
of Corrections
gets them 2 and 1/2 years, all
the way up to natural life.
And sheriffs are
elected six-year terms.
The Department of Corrections is
run by the Secretary of EOPs--
Executive Office of
Public Safety, which
is appointed by the governor.
The intersection of victims,
witnesses, and defendants
in municipal and district
courts, the lower level courts,
very interesting that the
Sheriff just pointed out.
But to Commissioner
Evans's point, and we
used to talk about this--
similarly, and Anthony knows
this as well with CPCS,
many of my defendants in
homicide or violent crime cases
were victims as well.
And I don't just mean
like figuratively.
I mean, literally, they have
been either shot before, they
have witnessed homicides.
So we-- one of the
big things that-- we
talk about treating people
with dignity and respect.
And everyone's like,
well, that sounds great,
but what does that mean?
If you knock on a
door, for example,
in my family alone-- and
this is a real true story.
My parents married for 50 years
together, live in Cambridge.
They have a daughter
that's the district
attorney of Suffolk County.
They have a son who's
served, unfortunately,
time in federal prison
and state prison
and is in recovery right now.
They have another son who just
came home from state prison.
They have a daughter who is the
executive director of the Red
Sox Foundation, and they have
a daughter who's in recovery.
So however you treat my
parents, whether you're
coming to visit me and
knocking as-- oh, my--
are you-- wonderful.
Esther and John, you
did such a great job.
Rachael's amazing.
Or if you're the FBI
to come to execute
a warrant on my parents' house.
They are the same two
people every time.
And what I think law enforcement
doesn't do well enough--
Commissioner Evans
did this wonderfully--
is you can be firm with
people, but you treat them
with respect.
Because in that house
could be Reverend Hammond,
who's the Reverend of one of
the biggest churches in Boston,
who's a potential juror for us.
How you treat these
individuals, even when
they are engaging in
horrific, horrendous behavior,
it matters to the
rest of the community,
because everyone's watching.
And I like to say as government,
we don't get to have a bad day.
Well, and also recognizing
that more and more
we are dealing with people who
are in this country from places
where the police are
not their friend.
So that knock at the door
isn't just what we all
might feel the apprehension
of the police coming,
it is real terror about
what's going to happen.
People who come
to this country--
I was in a program
the other day,
and you probably all
had this experience.
And it was being conducted
completely in another language.
And they had translators.
But I sat there, and I
had absolutely no idea
what people were talking about.
I was trying to read their face.
And I was trying to
get the body language
and figure out, is this a
good thing, is this bad thing?
But imagine having
so much at stake,
and you literally can't
understand what's happening,
and people who come
with customs and life
experiences that are
very different from us.
And all of us are
working on that,
to make sure that we are
culturally competent, to make
sure that our police
departments have resources,
so that when I come to report
what might have been the most
horrific incident in my
life, and it's already awful
that I have to sit down with
a stranger and report it,
that that person at
least is able to speak
to me in my own language so
that I can understand that.
That is the challenge.
And it's also making people
understand, in some part,
the difference between
local government
and federal government.
It's our job to protect
everybody who's here,
regardless of how they got here.
And that's part of why we
filed a lawsuit about a year
and a half ago.
Because we want people to
be able to come to court--
to come to court and protect
themselves, to come to court
and be witnesses for
us if they've seen
a homicide or some other crime.
Or if they are
charged with a crime,
to be able to
resolve their case.
And with the actions of
the federal government,
we're not allowing
us to do that.
So as prosecutors,
it's a hard thing
to move against another
law enforcement agency.
But you're all here,
and you will sit here
for three years learning
that our country works
because of our justice
system in the courts.
If people can't
access that freely--
and the Senator's
been down and seen
some of the terror in people--
families or children
that are separated.
You know, we did a lot of
work in Middlesex County
about those kids that
were held at the border.
And many of them are
not there anymore.
But where are they?
They're in Framingham in school.
They're going to
Children's Hospital.
After the trauma
they've been through,
now they're back
in situations where
there are figures of authority.
And I know the Senator
spent a lot of time
really doing the work,
being down there,
seeing the conditions
those kids were in.
And it is our job to make
sure that people have access
to what they need, the
services they are entitled to,
to the court system,
and that we meet people
where they are in their
lives, and we are culturally
able to communicate with them.
You want to pick that
up, Senator Markey?
Yeah.
Thank you.
And again, thank you
to Boston College Law
School for hosting us.
I feel home here.
My sophomore year at
Malden Catholic they
said, what is your goal?
I said, to go to Boston
College Law School.
And then they said to
me, well, what college
do you want to go to?
And I said, do you
have to go to college
to go to Boston
College Law School?
So that's how big of a
focus it was in my life,
to be honest with you.
So it's great to be back here
and talking about these issues,
because that's who you are.
You are-- you're going to be
the protectors of our society.
My constitutional law professor
here was Herbert O. Reed.
He had-- he was on one-year
sabbatical from Howard
University Law School.
And he was Muhammad
Ali's lawyer.
He was Adam Clayton
Powell's lawyer.
He was protecting all of
the rights of these people
who were being
shortchanged at the time.
And one of the students-- one
of the white male students
said, again, give us the
definition of standing,
to Herbert O. Reed.
And he looked down,
and he said, well,
he said, for you, you were born
with standing because you're
a white male in our society.
And your job, and everyone
in the class, your job
is going to be to get
standing for everyone
else who is not a white male.
And we're still
finding that right now.
And that's what our district
attorneys are doing,
to give standing to these
immigrants who are here,
give standing to a lot of
these people who can't even
speak English.
It's an ongoing,
never-ending struggle
to accomplish that goal.
And even-- and
I'm kind of here--
I'm glad to be here.
I'm kind of on a Donald Trump
weekend work release program
to be here.
I have to-- I'm
getting on a plane
after I leave here to
go back down to DC.
The Corona virus is
a perfect example.
We want everyone who
thinks they may have it
to go to medical professionals.
But what if you're
an immigrant here--
undocumented?
Don't we want them right
now to go in and get tested?
Don't we want them to
make sure that this
doesn't spread any faster
and further than it
would otherwise?
So even looking at our country
with 11 million immigrants
right now, how do we treat them?
And so Rachael and Marian are
leading the charge here to say,
no, they should be able to
come into court without fear
that there's going to be an ICE
agent there just to grab them.
Because then it's going to
undermine the criminal justice
system where we get all
the information we need.
The same thing is true in our
health care system right now.
We need them to feel that
the system isn't going
to be a trap that results
in them just being grabbed
once they have to identify
themselves in order
to qualify for care.
So it's pervasive
throughout our society,
in the era of Donald
Trump, especially.
Because it is creating
a world where he feels
he can speak with impunity
about Mexicans and Muslims
and women of color and
immigrants in general.
And then that creates a
chilling effect in our society
that affects us
and undermines kind
of our soul of who we are, Emma
Lazarus, and what we should be
fighting for, what
young lawyers should
be trying to ensure that we're
protecting in our society.
So we're at actually a
pivotal moment in our history.
This whole election is putting
all these issues on the--
it's on the ballot, all of it.
Because there will be--
of the 100 senators,
I have voted
against more of Donald
Trump's judges than all--
then 99 other senators.
I voted against them.
I voted pretty much
against all of them--
a couple of exceptions,
but all of them.
Because they're actually
all being certified
by the Federalist
Society to kind of review
the entire Warren Court era--
all of those
safeguards, protections
that are supposed to be put
on the books for everyone,
and then further
interpreted to liberalize,
so that we continue to
look at the 14th Amendment
so that everyone is
given an opportunity
to take advantage of them.
And that's really
what you're all about.
You're the army
coming over the hill
here to reinforce this
effort to continue
to expand the way in which
this whole criminal justice
system treats everyone.
Rachael, do you want to pick
that up a little bit further?
Yeah, very quickly.
Just ICE-- the ICE issues
are so complicated.
So Marian had been
leading the charge trying
to get this lawsuit filed
with respect to civil arrests
in and around our courthouses.
And we believe that
churches, schools, hospitals,
and courthouses are
places where people should
be able to go and be as honest
as they possibly can to get
their treatment or services.
And to DA Ryan's
point, I don't want
you to just understand when
you're in court 67% of what's
happening.
If we have the ability to take
your liberty even for a day--
or remember when
everyone was outraged
after a judge put a criminal
defense lawyer in jail
for three hours, and she almost
didn't get to have dinner
with her children that night.
And people were like, oh.
And I was like, yeah.
Come to court any
day, and just watch
busloads of poor people being
held all the time because they
don't have money, and
black and brown people,
and we'll see if the same single
tear rolls down your face.
But I just think we have to
be really honest about how
difficult the ICE issues are.
We have the litigation
the DA and I have filed.
We have collateral consequences,
where we just recently went up
to the Supreme Judicial
Court because somebody
who had a misdemeanor
eight or nine years ago
was going to be deported
back to Somalia where
he spent two days--
two days after he was born--
and then 10 years
in Saudi Arabia,
and then ultimately came to
the United States as a refugee.
We were going to send
him back to Somalia,
where he spent two days.
And we fought hard
not to do that.
I think the other
thing that people
don't recognize
about ICE is DA Ryan
and I will be doing the hard
work of holding somebody
accountable for a
violent serious crime--
rape, armed assault
to murder, some--
part one violent serious crime.
If they're deportable,
ICE takes them
and deports them
before we hold them
accountable for that crime.
We have obligations
to our victims.
So there have been times where--
and I'll let you
speak to yours--
arrests have been made.
We go to find the person--
they're gone.
I've had them brought
back from Louisiana.
We had to bring somebody back
from the Dominican Republic
to hold them accountable,
so that that victim gets
their day in court.
They get to have their
victim impact statement.
And then the flip
side is hate crimes,
where we are seeing
an uptick with respect
to not only immigrants, but
Jewish individuals, LGBTQ.
Anti-Semitic hate crimes
are on an incredible rise,
which is offensive--
horrible violent crimes that
are happening.
And with respect to us, I'd
had an arraignment this morning
for two individuals
that told a mother
and her 15-year-old
daughter in East Boston,
in America we speak English.
Go back to your shit country.
And then their
lawyers saying, there
are two sides to every story.
We have this on video.
I'd love to hear what
the other side is,
but for me, it's like these are
permeating in our communities.
Hate crimes to me are just
as destructive as violence,
because people are left
terrorized and fearful,
and don't feel like anyone's
standing up to help them.
But it's really
complicated, the stuff
we're dealing with with ICE.
DA Ryan.
And the militarization of ICE.
And just to the point of
being held or being in jail,
and we talk about why the
system goes round and round.
When you go to court
and bail is set on you,
we don't take your credit card.
We don't take your real estate.
You have to have cash.
Somebody has to show up
with the cash for your bail.
And we all know
people that if you
had to have $500 this
afternoon, they just
couldn't come up with $500.
So under the system
we had for years,
you would be held in jail
until you either came up--
excuse me-- with the $500,
or your case went to trial.
Now, your case might
go to trial after you'd
been held for six
months by the Sheriff,
and you were found not guilty.
Or your case went to trial,
and you got found guilty
and you got probation.
But you've been in
jail for six months.
So what would
happen to your life
if suddenly today you were
plucked out of it and held?
And you have probably
3,000 more advantages
than most of the people
we see in the system,
because many of them
work an hourly wage job.
You don't show up, your job
goes to the next person.
They live in a precarious
housing situation.
So when you don't pay your
$50 a week for your room,
your room gets rented
to somebody else.
And most importantly,
if you have a child,
and you don't have a family
who can come pick your child up
at school and you're held, they
go into the custody of DCF.
And it's $10 a minute.
Right.
Now, DCF works really hard,
but they have a big job.
And no child comes out of DCF
with an improved view of life.
So all of that was
part of the calculus
that we made in
deciding that we could,
in cases where we were
not ultimately going
to be seeking a jail sentence,
not ask for cash bail.
If you're not going
to jail at the end
even if you get
convicted, why should we
hold you for six months?
That sounds pretty
simple, right?
Except everybody said,
terrible things will happen.
People won't come back.
All kinds of awful
things will befall us.
Well, we've been doing it now
for about a year and a half.
None of those things
have happened.
People are coming back to court
at the same rate they always
were coming back.
And while their case is
going through the system,
they're living their life.
They're working.
They're taking
care of their kids.
They're doing everything
they need to be doing.
Which is why having
that different lens,
having the ability to
say, why do we do this--
you came to BC to
learn those things.
We learned here.
It isn't just about what
you learned in a book.
It's about how you
see people, how you
think about problem solving.
Some of the federal legislation
that Senator Markey has
been able to introduce is
things that are different.
He's been a great partner to
us around the opioid issue
in figuring out
different kinds of things
that we can be doing for people.
That's what you have the
privilege of learning here, is
how to change the
way we do things.
I just want to--
30 seconds-- if
you can post bail,
you stay out in the community.
You keep Medicaid.
If you can't post bail, you
lose your Medicaid coverage.
Think about that.
Think about almost a poll tax
for eligibility to health care.
So I have legislation to
eradicate that distinction.
But that's all part
of the craziness
that's built into the system.
Because as Peter said,
80% of the people
that he's dealing with have
a substance abuse problem.
So access to the Medicaid, to
MassHealth for these people
is absolutely central.
Is that a response to
what the Senator Markey--
I'm sure it was.
I'm sure it was.
I know.
All right.
Let me move us to
the next phase.
We've had a lot of
good conversation
about the sort of the pre-arrest
phase, the pretrial phase.
But as you-- something that
nobody wants, but we got it,
you don't want to lose it.
But when you do lose it,
you may end up incarcerated.
So let's talk about that, that
group of folks that do end up
incarcerated.
And maybe Sheriff
Koutoujian, you've
been doing some new
things with folks.
Could you talk about that a bit?
Yeah.
So-- and it should
be noted, by the way,
Ed Markey has led this fight for
the Medicaid pretrial exclusion
rule which, to my mind, is
a violation of due process.
Actually, there's
no process at all.
You've just terminated.
The locals take on
the responsibility
of paying for all that.
This is probably nothing that Ed
Markey really thought much of,
but I just want to
be honest with you.
When we went to his
office and said,
this is a really
important issue,
and it doesn't just affect
Middlesex, it affects the state
and it affects the entire
nation, he jumped on this
and dealt with it right.
So it's something that's really
important, that continuity
of care for this population.
And also it shows that those
that have access to insurance,
especially that
with substance use
and mental health support
services as Medicaid
does, that you are 33%
less likely to recidivate.
So it actually keeps
our community safer,
keeps people on
the street as well.
Listen, the preparation
for reentry,
for leaving a place
of incarceration,
begins on day one.
There's an assessment
of your needs--
the criminogenic
factors that kind of
led you in there, whether mental
health, substance use disorder,
your social network,
homelessness, joblessness,
all these things that
brought you in there.
I'll also say this, by the way.
You know, I speak with a lot--
and as we have acknowledged up
here, there's some dangerous
people in these facilities.
They're just-- you know--
I mean, we could speak about
people with a lot of problems,
and there's a vast--
I don't want to say
a vast majority,
but there's a significant
majority of those people.
But we have some
dangerous people in there
too that we want to
protect society from,
and maybe help them kind of get
through their time better too.
But a lot of our
population has issues
that can be corrected
with the right supports
and that simply haven't been.
I will say this too.
As people are leaving, I can
see that they get anxious.
Because inside they're
getting what they need,
and they're worried
about getting
back outside because they
know what can befall them,
which is failure again.
They live inside, and people
say, oh, people don't really--
it's not a big deal for them
to cycle in and out of jail.
It is a big deal.
Because these guys are
not fulfilled in jail.
And when you see them
leaving, all they
have-- they have these hopes
and dreams of being fulfilled.
I mean, it's very literally, of
being fulfilled and living just
like the rest of us--
and living just
like the rest of us.
So these people are
no different than us.
They have dreams.
They just can't
seem to figure out
how to accomplish those dreams.
It's because society has failed
them on many different levels.
So this is something that's
really important to know.
These are a lot of
very bad people.
But there's a lot
of people in there
that we can help that we're
just simply not helping.
So we've designed a couple
of different unique programs
to help.
We've got a medication-assisted
treatment program that
the senator
mentioned, which is--
we were one of the
first in the country
to begin a medication-assisted
treatment program.
And our first version failed.
Our second version
was good, right?
You always learn more
from your failures
than you do your successes,
because you actually go back.
And honestly, the second
version now is a national model.
And it was using Vivitrol.
So it's the antagonist form of
medication-assisted treatment,
not using methadone or
suboxone at that time.
We did this for five years.
We have significant
amounts of data and results
that came from this
program, including
the reduction of overdose
death, about the reduction of--
let me just give you--
we've got-- now we've
started our program
with all three forms, including
methadone and suboxone.
Now we've got about 135 unique
patients that have been dosed.
If they actually have a
prescription when they come in,
when they're arrested
or-- and incarcerated,
then we'll maintain
that prescription.
We'll also start up a
medication-assisted treatment
30 days prior to your release to
help prevent the overdose death
rate that the senator
just mentioned.
I know many people
that have left
my jail not doing an MAT program
that have had it all together.
And they get picked up
by a partner or someone
on the outside, and literally
within a matter of hours,
they're dead as a
result of an overdose.
So this is something
that we can save lives
and we can reduce recidivism.
We have shown that basically
the reduction of recidivism
had significant value
in our Vivitrol program.
We've got two statisticians
that are second to none.
It has shown quite conclusively
that this can work.
And now as we're stepping
into methadone and suboxone,
it's a whole new world.
We've started a housing
unit for military veterans,
a unique population.
We have a unique way to address
their issues to provide--
to draw upon their commonality
and what made them special
at one point in their career.
Remarkable results using
the Boston Red Sox and Mass
General for the
home-based program,
using McLean's hospitals,
and many other partners
that have come in and
supported this program.
A lot of volunteer services--
doesn't cost a lot of money
to run.
Reduces significantly
the rate of recidivism
for this population and
produces fulfillment.
And then the People Achieving
Change Together-- this
is a really rocking unit.
This is for young
adult offenders.
Now I will say, I'm a
recovering young adult.
I remember what it was like
to be 18 through 24 or 25.
There's a reason, by the way,
that rental car companies
don't rent to people under
the age of 26, right?
Because the actuaries
figure this out a long time
before society has,
that these young people
engage in riskier behaviors.
They have later maturation.
They fail to understand the
consequences of their actions.
As Rachael speaks about
overrepresentation--
they're 10% of our
population, but they're
21% of our incarcerated
population.
Then when you divide
out people of color
versus those that
are not of color,
it's an even more
significant divide.
So we actually developed a
program with the Vera Institute
to treat them uniquely, to use
cognitive behavioral therapy.
We're doing things that I
never thought we would ever
see in corrections.
It is a kick-ass unit.
We're doing restorative
justice circles.
We're doing mood
checks in the morning.
We've got a currency system
for there-- inside there.
We do disciplines
completely differently.
There's a different relationship
with a corrections officer.
Like, when you went
to Germany, right?
You guys went to Germany.
It's a very different
relationship.
They engage in
activities together.
And in that unit, we've taken
all of the young offenders that
are generally responsible
for 90% or higher
of every disciplinary
involved engagement
in the entire facility-- fights,
arguments, just all the stuff
that young people do.
Like honestly, I've got a
15 and a 16-year-old boy
and a 10-year-old girl at home.
And my boys are
torturing me right now.
They're just-- so
I can already see
what I'm in for for
a long time, and what
I put my parents through.
So these young men
actually come in--
same gang, different
gang, all this stuff.
And their unit is
working remarkably well.
They have advocated for
themselves for a microwave.
We're like, there's no
microwaves in jails.
And then we started
thinking, well, why not?
We gave them a microwave.
They just advocated
for a ping pong table.
There's no ping pong in jails.
Well, why not?
Paddles can't be used.
But there's engagement-- a lot
of these activities so far.
But there's a lot of
these activities going
on that are really remarkable.
If you take a unique population,
and you treat it uniquely,
you can have unique results.
This kind of one size fits
all across the spectrum
doesn't work.
Everyone's different in there.
And the more you can get
individualized and unique
to smaller populations, the
more work that you can do.
And in Middlesex and
across the country,
but really in Middlesex,
we're driving that
with data and with real results
on unique and innovative
programming, and
establishing best practice
that have been replicated
throughout the country as well.
So it's really,
really exciting time
in corrections and Middlesex.
Lot of great work
happening there, for sure.
Do you want to sort of take it
to the next stage a little bit
and talk about the things
that are happening on reentry
and the challenges
that people are facing,
or what we're doing from a
federal level on that side?
Or is that a good place to be?
Well, yeah.
I mean, obviously-- and
you know, again, we're--
the three people on
my right here, they're
reinventing the
criminal justice system.
And we're in Massachusetts.
We're only 2% of America.
But we're not just the
basic, we're the brain state.
So in criminal justice reform,
you're looking at it over here.
You're looking at the people who
are absolutely doing the job.
But then after they
leave, yeah, we're
going to have to
change the laws.
We've got to expunge
records of people who
should have never had a record.
We're going to have to give
them back the right to vote.
We're going to have to look
at the Pell Grant programs
and others and make sure that
they're eligible quickly,
so that they can take advantage
of our educational system.
We have to restore their
entirety of eligibility
to a health care
system immediately.
It shouldn't happen-- you
shouldn't be restoring Medicaid
two months, three months later.
They should get it immediately,
because obviously, they've
been given the
treatment in the jail.
And now as they're coming out,
they should be in a program
immediately where
the health care
system is providing
especially substance abuse
treatment for them.
And we have to-- and I'm working
with Cory Booker on this,
the senator from New Jersey.
It's kind of the second step.
There's a bill that passed
that was more modest last year.
But we just have to
get more bold about how
we look at this
entire population,
what we've done to
them, and what we have
to do in order to do our best.
We can't fully ever restore
what has been taken to them--
or taken from them by the
criminal justice system,
but just looking systematically
at all of these issues.
Because otherwise, we've failed.
We really have failed.
So I'm working with Cory
Booker and others to develop
the legislation
nationally that cannot--
that can actually,
a lot of it be
modeled upon what Massachusetts'
deep insight has given
to us, to make sure
that we telescope
the time frame it takes where
we can solve these problems.
And the children have to
look to the history books
that we ever treated a portion
of our population this way.
And so that's going
to be our challenge.
And you're going to be a
big part of that in terms
of making sure it happens.
So I think what I want
to do now is turn it out
to the students who are
going to be a part of this.
I do want to say that I want
to recognize students first,
give students an opportunity
to ask some questions.
So floor is open.
We have two microphones.
I know.
You remember-- you've
been around a while.
You're an advocate too.
Well, while we're
waiting, while someone's
thinking of a question,
because I know
it'll take a moment for you--
Give them-- no.
Give them a second.
Hold on.
Don't do that.
Don't interrupt the silence.
Let them come up here.
The awkward silence is what
brings the questions out.
Put them out there.
I got you.
All right.
All right.
Did you have your hand up, sir?
Yeah.
All right.
[INAUDIBLE]
Go ahead.
You got it.
So thank you guys so
much for coming out.
I thought this was
an awesome panel.
So my question is about
judges and prosecutors
that were very active
parts of the war on drugs,
and that gave out
some of the-- you'd
mentioned the sentencing
disparities for crack cocaine.
Do you think there should
be any punitive measures
or retraining for them
in order to rebuild trust
in the community?
Would you like to
take that Rachael?
Oh, me?
So yeah.
I think you've hit
it on the head.
With the benefit of being
able to look back now,
we have seen that a lot of
the tactics that were employed
didn't ultimately work.
And many of the
people that currently
sit on the bench
in Massachusetts
and around the world were former
prosecutors, or maybe even DA.
And that requires you to look in
the mirror and say to yourself,
was I wrong?
Was I involved in mass
incarceration potentially?
Add to that the layer
of, which is not just
the elephant in the room, the
herd of elephants in the room.
Currently right now
in Massachusetts
there are about 80
Superior Court judges.
Three of them are black.
And I would love
all of you-- you
are sitting in the beautiful
Middlesex County right now.
I'd love all of you to come
to Suffolk County in Boston,
and just sit for a couple of--
or why don't we have Anthony
Benedetti--
3% of the criminal defendants
in Suffolk Superior Court,
are they black?
3%?
I'm sorry.
More than that?
Yeah.
I'm asking a serious question.
But we have three black
judges, and 90 plus percent
of the Superior
Court judges are not
the population
that overwhelmingly
comes in front of them.
We talk about young people
and children and students--
it's really great to
have people say like, you
can be anything you want to be.
But if none of your teachers,
if none of the people that you
interact with every
day look like you,
it's really hard for
you to believe that.
And I will say, in the
criminal justice system,
if the person that arrest you,
the person that brings you up
the back of the courthouse,
the person that's
a court officer in that
room, your criminal defense
lawyer, your prosecutor,
the clerk, the judge,
and probation, none of
them look like you, there's
a lot of people that think the
system is rigged against them.
I think we all need training.
And I think judges
in particular do,
Many of the battles I've
had in my first year
are with judges who,
I find it hilarious,
are questioning prosecutorial
discretion, which for the 200--
almost 200 years that the
Suffolk County DA's office
was in existence prior
to me, they never
questioned that
discretion when we
were on a freight train moving
toward mass incarceration.
But now when we're
saying, I would
like to slow this
down and look at it,
I've had to go up to
the SJC multiple times
for them to say,
yes, you have it.
Keep using it.
I'll say this too, that--
[INAUDIBLE] Senator Markey.
Yeah.
And I agree with Rachael.
I was kind of disappointed in
my first week at Boston College
Law School.
There was a lot of discussion
about Marbury versus Madison
and it just went on, and
it was very high level.
But my idea of what a
lawyer was was Atticus Finch
in To Kill a Mockingbird.
And the first professor who
walked into the classroom
was the first lawyer I ever met.
My father was a milkman
with the Hood Milk Company.
And I'm going to be a
commuter to BC and BC
law school, seven years just
commuting back to Malden.
So I wanted more real life.
How does this really interact?
So I went with one other student
down to the Boston Municipal
Court.
And the Chief Justice's
name was Elijah Adlow.
And he was the Chief Justice.
And he was meting out justice.
And we just sat there
in the courtroom.
And the first case
was very interesting.
And he said-- and they had
picked up this African-American
young man sleeping
on Boston Common--
picked him up overnight.
And he wanted to defend himself.
And he made his case for why
he should not be sent away.
And Adlow then ruled six months.
And then he said, I appeal,
the African-American young man
said.
He says, well, we'll
make it a year,
just so it's worth your
time, on the appeal.
And so I'm looking at
the criminal justice
system in my first
week at BC Law School.
And honestly, we're not talking
about this in my first week
at Boston Law School--
Boston College Law School, our
second week, our second month,
or whatever.
So yeah, these judges,
they get pretty powerful.
They almost think they are
the criminal justice system.
They can do whatever they want.
And so there's a
reeducation program
going on here with our
two district attorneys.
And it's something that has to
become a national trend just
to break the habits that were
created over a generation.
We've got another gentleman
who I recognize that here.
Go ahead.
I'm going to try to move
the questions around.
So I do want to get more
students and others in.
Thank you.
I just wanted to ask about
the recent ICE coming
into Massachusetts,
like, where that stands,
and what are the issues there?
What do you do as local leaders
when the federal government
is trying to take
away protections
that we have in the state?
Well, fortunately, like many
of Donald Trump's predictions,
it's a lot of bluster and it
doesn't turn out to be much.
So we've been very
fortunate that whole
"I'm going to be sending
armed SWAT teams"
has fortunately not
really come to pass.
But I think it does really show
the importance of how elections
matter and who stands up for
you and who knows the values.
Because for instance
here in Massachusetts,
we are fortunate.
We're partnered with
police departments that
don't employ those tactics, and
that aren't being cooperative
beyond what they're
required to do with ICE.
So that has made
a huge difference.
Did you want to jump
onto that quickly?
Can I--
I'll just say-- I'll just
say in just a related issue,
back in August they started--
Trump had this new
rule where we had
young people from
other countries
who were being given
medical treatment at Mass
General and other institutions.
And they just ruled last August
that they had to be deported.
Kids with cancer were being
taken out of our hospitals
because they said they
didn't have the right papers.
And so I actually organized
with Ayanna Pressley, and then
10 other senators, and just
put the pressure on Trump,
and he backed down in two weeks,
to keep those kids here getting
their medical treatment.
So this is an on--
this is a battle.
And we have to
actually be the leader.
The cutting edge is really here.
We just have to-- in every
one of these issues, just
stand up to ensure that all the
full constitutional rights are
extended to everyone
who is entitled to it.
I want to let Rachael
get in, and then I
want to go out to
the audience again.
The biggest issue that I
want people to understand
is ICE keeps saying
to you, we're
deporting the most
violent people,
but it's for a civil infraction.
Marian and I are holding
violent people accountable.
ICE isn't.
They're removing people
for a civil violation.
That's why they
civilly arrest them.
That's not like, oh, sir,
please stand this way--
not that type of
civil, not criminal.
Your constitutional
rights don't apply
when-- they don't have to bring
you to an Article III judge.
They throw you in a
van, and we don't even
know where you're going.
And I find out that
you're in Louisiana.
So I think for ICE, it's
just really important
to recognize that also when
they militarize themselves,
Commissioner Evans,
Commissioner Gross,
they're working on
community policing.
And that is the exact opposite
of that when you send Robocop
into a neighborhood, and
they're harassing people
all over the place.
Then they leave, leaving Chief
Kyes, Commissioner Gross, Chief
Delehanty, Chief Guido,
my chiefs, Chief Green,
to then pick up the pieces
and go back to that community
and say, trust us again.
Here we are.
Well, you want to come--
oh, you don't want to
talk to us anymore?
That's what we're dealing
with every single day.
Yes ma'am.
This is a question
for the Sheriff.
I don't know what
the current policy is
in your county about
287(g), but I'm
curious about your county and
the rest of Massachusetts.
So 287(g) is a program to really
allow ICE status, I guess,
inside.
We don't do it in Middlesex.
I think there's a
couple that do it.
Personally, I just-- we'll
never do it in Middlesex.
I don't hold ICE prisoners.
I don't-- I'm not interested
in doing a 287(g).
I mean, these are-- like the
DA said, these are binary.
They're two different tracks.
You can keep our community
safe, and they can do their job.
But my frustration is why do we
have to do their job for them?
That's their job.
Let them do their job.
And I get frustrated when
I've got some of my colleagues
that are jumping
all over it saying,
well, we have to do this to
keep your community safe.
So it's two different things.
And I want to be also
clear about this.
I'm now-- it was mentioned I'm
President of the Major County
Sheriffs of America.
I'm actually going
on a border tour
next week with a Sheriff
from Pima County, Arizona,
that has about 120 miles of
open borders, the longest
open border space in any
county across this country.
And he is very reasoned on.
So when you think about what's
going on in the country,
you go talk to some of
the real border sheriffs.
Some of them might be
about build a wall.
But a lot of them are
not about build a wall.
They might be
saying build a wall,
but it involves technology
and some structure
and many other different ways.
But these are the people
that see the terrible tragedy
of what can happen.
They see the--
they find people--
families, children,
dead in the desert.
He had to spend hours trying
to pluck a gentleman off
of a cliff with a
number of helicopters.
They see the drug cartel, which
is driving this immigration.
They see the
trafficking of people
and the trafficking of drugs.
They see all of this.
So their perspective is
a little bit different.
And sometimes we
don't pay attention
to that perspective of the
real issues around the border,
because we're too stuck talking
about sanctuary cities, which
is an important
thing to talk about,
but we lose focus on the real
issues that are facing us
with regard to immigration,
and real people that
are doing the real work that are
also more reasonable about how
they might want to address it.
So in short, not involved.
The feds can do their job.
I can do my job.
And they might-- they don't
have to conflict necessarily,
but I'm not going to
do their job for them.
And I'm going to the border,
not with you, but a week or two
after.
You're going to be there
with some prosecutors
from across the country.
And I think your
point is great one.
Like the Senator did, I've
been to the Suffolk County
House of Corrections, Nashua
Street, and South Bay.
I've been to Shirley,
Norfolk, and Concord.
Because I firmly believe
if I have the power
to send somebody
somewhere and have never
set foot in that place myself
or seen it-- and I'm not a fool.
I get it when I say,
I'm here to see--
I'm here to have a tour, they're
not going to do whatever we--
it's not going to turn into Oz--
you're too young to
even know what Oz is.
But anyway, so my
point is just I think
it's really important that--
it's very easy for me to sit
in my chair at One Bulfinch
and say, in a perfect
world we should all be--
I'm not the person in the
Youth Violent Task Force
in the middle of the night
going in Dorchester, Roxbury,
and Mattapan.
And we have 10 homicides
right now since January 1.
We've had brazen middle
of the morning shootings.
These are real
violent individuals
that we are dealing
with at times.
So I think it's really important
you see both sides and listen
to members of law enforcement,
but then members who have--
individuals who have touched
the system on a different side
as well.
Bob Bloom, who taught me
all the criminal law I know,
once said that we sit in
this room, and none of us
probably have been
police officers
or know the other side of that.
So that's a really
critical piece.
I want us to get
some more questions.
And by the way, when
they're talking,
put your hands up so that I
can sort of know who's next
and get the microphone
over next to you.
Sir, in the back.
So I know who's
going to be next.
Don't hesitate to
put your hand up.
So my question relates to
the costs of incarceration
for both those who are
incarcerated currently
and their families,
and how you see
this as a part of fixing
the criminal justice system
and reducing recidivism rates?
So I guess that's probably me?
So incarceration is expensive.
It's really expensive.
It's not just the cost of the
security, which is significant
if you want to run a
safe, orderly institution.
You got to say the staffing
is important to that.
It's 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.
Our officers suffer from
wellness issues themselves
because of the jobs themselves.
So understaffing is not
good for either the officers
or the offenders or the
incarcerated men inside.
But there is a great--
I think you really brought up
something really important.
So I get a call recently from
a state rep that said, hey,
I've got a friend from Billerica
whose son is incarcerated
in your facility.
He's really worried
about his son.
He's never been
incarcerated before.
He's been an addict for
a long period of time.
They might have lost
touch, da, da da, da, da.
I said, I'd love
to call this guy.
This goes back to our days in
the legislature where you just
love to speak to people about
how it's impacting them.
It's not like we're
making decisions.
You like to speak to
people, and quite honestly,
the idea of public service.
And I don't get
to do this enough.
So I would speak with them.
And I remember this man said,
I live so close to your jail
that I could throw a rock off
of my back deck and hit it.
Imagine growing up
under the shadow--
or maybe not the shadow.
That's too gloomy.
But within that
closeness, proximity
of a jail, and never
knowing your own damn son's
going to end up there.
How heartbreaking.
So I was able to
speak with them.
Then what I realized was that
he was suffering incredibly,
and he was a victim of
this incarceration as well.
So I realized that I got to talk
to a few of these people that
would either know me, or
they were important enough
to know someone else important.
But there was thousands
of other family members
that were never getting
to talk to anyone.
So I actually said, I want
to create a family support
services coordinator position,
because no one's talking
these people.
They're suffering.
They don't know about services
that they're entitled to.
They don't know how their
loved one's doing inside.
If their loved one is
thinking about self-harm,
they don't know
who to tell inside
for us to watch for them.
They don't know how to
prepare for their reentry.
And you guys go away on a
good trip, you come back,
and you think you want to
start to control what's
going on in the home again.
And then your loved ones look
at you like, you're a loser.
We were doing quite
well without you, man.
My wife does this
to me when I go away
for a few days at a time.
So I can imagine if you
were incarcerated even more
so, because you're coming
back and things are not right.
So we actually
created this position.
It's kind of cool.
We actually added a
corrections officer onto this.
Now, we're going to
be able to service
those other victims
of this incarceration
through their families-- get
them in touch with Al Anon.
Get them services.
Let them know how to
talk to their children
about incarceration.
Get them-- their
health put together,
and then let them understand
how to accept that reentry.
And not only top of
that, you can turn them
into a volunteer workforce
for reentry support
when they get back out.
So the costs of
incarceration are too much.
Understand, as these
numbers go down,
the staffing levels
don't go down
to the exact same percentage.
Because you still have-- whether
you have 30 people in a unit
or 60 people in a unit, you
have to have two corrections
officers.
So the staff-- the costs
don't go down exactly,
but the greater
work can be done.
Because as these numbers--
I'm getting really excited
now, because this is something
that's really my bugaboo.
Now, with the numbers
coming down a little bit,
I can do corrections.
If you are overcrowded
or you're at capacity,
you're not doing corrections,
you're keeping people
safe in their units from each
other and from the officers,
and you're not able to
do real corrections.
Now with these slightly
smaller numbers,
I can start unique units
that are driving recidivism
down even further, so it's an
opportunity at the same time.
So you know what?
This is a really
important point.
Criminal justice reform
is not about saving money.
Sometimes when we were pushing
for criminal justice reform
people would be saying, well,
make a conservative argument
that this is a
way to save money.
It's not.
It might save
money, but we're not
try to make our jails cheap.
Cheap jails are dangerous jails.
Cheap jails are jails where
corrections doesn't happen.
I want to get out to-- so I
appreciate the work you do.
Can I just yell
something, though?
Yell one--
For numbers-wise.
So $55,000 a year to send
someone to the Suffolk County
House of Corrections.
And I don't know whether
you meant two per one.
But the ratios for
every four, let's say,
prisoners, there's one CO?
Well, it depends on the unit.
See, this the whole thing.
It always depends on the unit.
But like 28 students
per one teacher.
And for me, when I
argue let's flip that.
And then there are people--
forget about the sheriff who
does not prey on prisoners.
But I've had loved ones
that are incarcerated.
If you knew how much it costs
to receive a collect call
from someone in jail,
or how much it costs you
as an individual behind the
wall to make that call--
you're paid pennies
on the dollar.
We see in California
prisoners being sent out
to help with the fires.
They can't be firefighters
when they come home
because they're felons.
But they can save us in
our beautiful Malibu homes.
I don't know anything
about California, but--
Sounds good.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
In the back.
In the back.
Just say, a policy of
free community college
at Bunker Hill, Roxbury
Community College,
and Middlesex
Community College would
be a bargain compared
to what we pay to keep
the same person behind bars.
We just have to
flip the paradigm,
have those who
have not committed
really serious crimes--
you have a system
that says free.
Right.
Or when we testify in
front of the legislature
about putting $17,000--
$15,000, $17,000
per student in
rural poor schools
or urban schools
that are failing,
and some members
of the legislature
are cross-examining us
better than F. Lee Bailey.
But then won't blink an eye
when we send somebody away
for $55,000 on the back end.
Let's invest in hope and
promise and opportunity,
and not at the end
without caring at all.
They don't remember F. Lee
Bailey either, by the way.
I'm old.
It's basically-- I'm old.
Better jails, but better
schools first-- better community
colleges.
In the back.
Have you ever heard
that F. Lee Bailey was?
Hello.
I'd like to thank
you all for coming.
At Boston College we
currently have a 1L elective
on restorative justice,
where we explore
whether prisons are obsolete.
And I'd like to ask
each of you if you
think prisons, in your
view of restorative justice
in the future,
could be obsolete,
if we will always need them,
or what alternative systems
you see as being competitive.
So-- sorry.
All right.
Three sentence answer from each.
OK.
Not more than three.
Try.
Because I want to give--
there's other folks out there.
Go ahead.
OK.
So Middlesex County
was the first county
to start using
restorative justice, which
if you don't know
what it is, if you've
been a prosecutor your whole
life, and what they tell you
about it is, we're all
going to go sit in a room,
and we're going to
pass a stone around.
And when it's your turn, you
can tell the impact of something
that happened.
And when we're done,
we'll figure out
what the punishment should be.
I did not think that was
something I was signing up for.
I support it because it
does what I have never
seen in a courtroom.
Courtrooms are a lot
like Charlie Brown.
The defendant stands
up, sits down.
You hear womp, womp,
womp, womp, womp.
And then the person leaves, not
having a lot of thought change.
Restorative justice does
change people's minds.
So we supported that.
It's now part of
the legislation.
Everybody in Massachusetts
has access to that.
It's useful everywhere.
In the jails-- you heard the
Sheriff mention they use it.
It's useful in schools, and it's
useful as a part of a sentence.
I would just say it's--
I'm going to consider
that the DA used up
everybody else's sentences
and made a full answer.
Well, can I just say one thing?
And we know that you're
all fully in support
of restorative justice.
I just want to say one thing,
that it takes the buy-in of all
the parties around.
And if you don't
have the buy-in,
then you can't do
restorative justice.
So it can be an issue
when you come down
to the victims of the crime that
may not want to participate.
If you don't have a victim
that's willing to participate,
you can't do
restorative justice.
But there's some things, and I
need you to hear me say this.
I left an arraignment
today of a man
who's alleged to have raped a
woman who was leaving a bar.
And then we have three other
hits in CODIS from his DA
And three other--
there are people
that need to be removed
from our community.
And a restorative
justice circle isn't
going to help with respect
to that, certainly not
in the beginning.
I don't think we need to be
building any new prisons,
but I have a new respect and
understanding in my limited 14
months as DA, having gone to
homicide scenes and seen that,
there are some individuals
that just cannot at that moment
in their life--
I'm not saying never-- but
at that moment in their life,
they cannot be in our
community and allow us to keep
our community safe.
So there has to be a
place we can send them.
Thank you for nailing
that aspect of it.
Sir.
And this is-- I'm going to go--
one question here.
I know-- are there any
other students that have--
I think-- I've got--
we'll see-- you know what?
This is going to be
the last question.
I'm sorry.
Because I've got to finish in
90 minutes, and you got it, sir.
All right.
Great.
Sorry, Anthony.
You can talk to him afterward.
You can greet people anytime.
You know these people.
So first I wanted to say that
I'm familiar with DA Rollins,
and she does come to the prison.
She does a great job.
She pays attention.
The Sheriff amazes me.
Because it's the first time
I heard anyone out here
get how it has to
work in a prison.
I just came out of prison
with doing 32 years
for a crime I didn't commit.
I've spoken here a few times.
I'm actually doing your 50th
anniversary here speaking.
My question is, we
talked about reentry.
I gave 32 years to this
system, and didn't get
one amount of help as reentry.
The way the system is set up, if
you're in a particular program,
you're going to get
some certificates,
but it's not going to be
real life for out here.
And nothing's in place.
So I really wanted to
ask Senator Markey, what
do you say on a
national level, not just
the movie, the way they see us.
All of us guys been together.
Right here in Massachusetts,
there are over eight of us
in the last three years
that have gotten out--
innocent-- is
continuing to get out.
But I haven't heard
no real movement
in Massachusetts about
what happens to us,
and the accountability.
The young man down
here in the hat
talked about the accountability.
The people that put me away--
the DA and the people that
played a role in that courtroom
all knew what they were doing.
We've proved that.
No one was held accountable for
what happens to us, not one.
So my question is,
on a national stage,
what would you say about your
hometown that is supporting?
And I look at-- and I
want to make this point.
I looked at Bob Kraft,
and I actually went
and I appreciate
the invite to go
there to be with the Patriots.
But I look at in our
hometown, jumping
on other people's issue--
New York, everywhere
else, and getting
behind it, but really not
saying much about our own home
that is doing the same thing and
convicting people innocently.
Because you don't
have to do anything
to be caught up in
the justice system.
You can just be at the wrong
place at the wrong time.
When are we going
to talk about that?
You know what?
Just to interject one thing.
For what it's worth, we did in
our criminal justice reforms
of last year, dramatically--
we doubled the amount
that people can recover,
the folks in your shoes,
and tried to streamline
the process so people could
get their money more quickly and
start to do things like college
and so forth to start
reentry supports.
But let me-- let's give
other people an opportunity.
Senator Markey, he
called on you if--
Yeah.
I can speak.
Yeah.
Well, clearly we need
integrity in the process.
And we have to make sure that
that just becomes the norm,
not just here, but
across the whole country.
Again, we have leaders
here who are doing that.
We have to have a debate
about reparations.
Cory Booker and I, we're
the only co-sponsors so far
but we've introduced a
reparations bill in the United
States Senate, so we can
begin this discussion
of our entire criminal
justice system.
But our society as a
whole, to a large extent,
we have substituted slave
cells on ships coming here
for prison cells.
That exists all
across this country
in terms of the
population and the way
the criminal justice
system treats them.
So we need more
integrity, but we also
have to look at the
reparations, which
we owe to people like you who
have gone through this system
and have been wrongly treated.
But that it just can't be--
well, sorry.
We made a mistake.
It's got to be something
that's much greater,
and that will actually be the
lesson to the criminal justice
system, that we're
looking at you,
and we're going to
make you accountable.
But these are the experts here.
Thank you, Senator.
District attorney.
So right.
So conviction--
And we are at time, by the way.
Yeah.
Conviction integrity is what
we're talking about here.
But I don't want to wait
30 years to say, oops,
we made a mistake.
What I'm proud about
in Suffolk County
is we have an Integrity
Review Bureau.
So it's not just convictions.
We're looking at sentencing.
We have our lead database,
which is our basically
Giglio database for
members of law enforcement
that might have gotten
in some trouble.
But we're looking
at case integrity,
when there are pivotal
events in a case that happen,
to see if there were
mistakes made then.
And then we hired
a full-time person,
like I know DA Ryan has done.
And he's not in appeals, right?
He's stand-alone?
David [INAUDIBLE].
So we have a unit now where
every time I go and visit--
Concord, Shirley, Norfolk,
and other places, David Lewis
is the individual that we have
you send your materials to,
and we are reviewing
all of those things.
But we have to be able to
make the bold steps of saying,
we're going to look
backwards and see.
Because there's no industry
in the world where people
get it right 100% of the time.
And for whatever reason,
in law enforcement,
we love thinking that
we never make mistakes.
I'm proud of, as well, even
though Fred Clay was exonerated
by my predecessor, we wrote an
apology letter to him myself.
He was able to get a million
dollars by the attorney
general.
But we need to make that
process more obvious to people.
So what you see before
you is four people who
are very passionate.
And you've heard the
passion in their answers
about making the criminal
justice system better.
It's an effort that doesn't end.
It's an effort that all of
you will have the opportunity
to contribute to.
Thank you all so
much for our panel.
Yeah.
Thank you.
[INAUDIBLE] remember,
Senator Brownsberger
was the person who
helped us do all
of [INAUDIBLE]
with the crime lab.
I was going to say, we have
five passionate people here,
not just four.
So on behalf of the Rappaport
Center for Law and Public
Policy, I want to thank
all of the panelists
for being here, giving us your
time, being so thoughtful,
and helping move
criminal justice forward.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
