Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritude Day, a show
Speaker 1: where we reimagine the word citizen as a verb, reclaim
Speaker 1: it from those who weaponized it, and remind ourselves how
Speaker 1: to wield our collective power. I'm Baritune Day. Like a
Speaker 1: healthy democracy, this show is stronger with your participation, and
Speaker 1: we have a number of ways for you to do
Speaker 1: that in public. Use the hashtag how to Citizen when
Speaker 1: you post about the show on social media, and I'll
Speaker 1: share out some of your stories. To communicate with us directly,
Speaker 1: send feedback and ideas to comments at how to citizen
Speaker 1: dot com, and if you've taken the actions we recommend
Speaker 1: at the end of each episode, share those with us
Speaker 1: by emailing action at how to citizen dot com. We've
Speaker 1: been moved by which you shared from the episode so
Speaker 1: far and look forward to more into building future episodes
Speaker 1: with you and your actions. Now a word on how
Speaker 1: we make this show. We've record most of these shows
Speaker 1: live in Zoom with a studio audience, cameras on chat
Speaker 1: room lit up, and we take questions from you for
Speaker 1: our guests. I'd love to have you joined for future taping.
Speaker 1: Visit how does citizen dot com and join my email
Speaker 1: list for the invites and my amazing weekly emails. I'm
Speaker 1: the best emailer while I love the live audience. Don't worry.
Speaker 1: I'll catch up with just you on the other side
Speaker 1: of this conversation where I'll give you some really specific
Speaker 1: ways to citizen for this episode. In the meantime, I'm
Speaker 1: going to hand the mic to myself as I set
Speaker 1: up the conversation with our amazing guests. I have been
Speaker 1: thinking about this word normal a lot lately. What does
Speaker 1: normal mean? You know, normal is this state of things
Speaker 1: that we get used to, and normal can change. So,
Speaker 1: for example, I don't think as normal to have fifteen
Speaker 1: different streaming platforms vying for access to my wallet and
Speaker 1: my attention. I think that is very abnormal. But someone
Speaker 1: just coming into the world today says, okay, Grandpa, thanks
Speaker 1: for complaining. This is how it is. Stop your whining.
Speaker 1: In the United States, we have grown accustomed to a
Speaker 1: lot of normal that feels pretty abnormal if you start
Speaker 1: to look at it a different way. And nowhere is
Speaker 1: this clearer than in the area of public safety, and
Speaker 1: in particular the area of policing. We exist in a
Speaker 1: moment right now of pandemic and uprising and revolution centered
Speaker 1: around so much of this issue of policing. And it
Speaker 1: has become normal in this country to spend a hundred
Speaker 1: billion dollars a year on law enforcement. It has become
Speaker 1: normal for school police departments to have grenade launchers, you know,
Speaker 1: in case the kids get out of hand. It has
Speaker 1: become normal for the number one budget item and many
Speaker 1: of our cities to be going to the police department,
Speaker 1: making all of us residents, by default, by mathematical law,
Speaker 1: residents of a police state. But a challenge has emerged
Speaker 1: from this moment to change that normal, to do something different,
Speaker 1: to defund the police. And I know when I first
Speaker 1: heard that, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1: What are we talking about here? This sounds like madness?
Speaker 1: What about crime? I literally I was like, what about crime?
Speaker 1: What about murders? What all the bad things? And there's
Speaker 1: an answer to that, an answer we're going to explore
Speaker 1: far beyond the slogans in this show. We can spend
Speaker 1: our money in many different ways. We can make the
Speaker 1: public safe without calling on a relatively unaccountable man with
Speaker 1: a gun to try to resolve a situation. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to have that discussion. I wanted to explore this
Speaker 1: range of options. Are we're gonna have any police at all?
Speaker 1: It sounds a little crazy. What about the cops that
Speaker 1: are already there, like some of them are good people,
Speaker 1: But also what about social workers and people who actually
Speaker 1: know how to solve some of the problems of homelessness
Speaker 1: that we are burdening these police officers with. And what
Speaker 1: about the risk to communities who were so overburdened with
Speaker 1: exposure to law enforcement for whom they are not protecting
Speaker 1: and serving but doing something much more dastardly. I can't
Speaker 1: do that discussion on my own, and I knew two
Speaker 1: people I wanted to do it with, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: get the benefit of their genius and their brilliance in
Speaker 1: this episode. The first is Dr Philip at Tiba Golf.
Speaker 1: He's the co founder and CEO of the Center for
Speaker 1: Policing Equity. This is the world's largest think tank and
Speaker 1: action tank focused exclusively on race and policing. It's like
Speaker 1: he built an organization designed or where we are right now. Also,
Speaker 1: as if that's not enough, He's a professor of African
Speaker 1: American Studies in Psychology at Yale University. His team at
Speaker 1: CPE uses data science and partnerships with law enforcement agencies
Speaker 1: and communities to reduce racial bias in policing. Joining Dr
Speaker 1: Phil Goff will be Zach Norris, executive director of the
Speaker 1: Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Zack's also the author
Speaker 1: of a book made for this moment called We Keep
Speaker 1: Us Safe, Building secure, just and inclusive Communities. He's the
Speaker 1: co founder of Restore Oakland, a community advocacy and training
Speaker 1: center that will empower Bay Area community members to transform
Speaker 1: local economic and justice systems and make a safe and
Speaker 1: secure future possible for themselves and their families. That's the
Speaker 1: formal introduction. The informal introduction is I have known these
Speaker 1: brothers for twenty five years. We're in the same year
Speaker 1: from Harvard, and I have seen them do this work
Speaker 1: their entire adult lives. They've devoted it so much to
Speaker 1: liberation to improvement in very different ways. I am excited
Speaker 1: to welcome you, Phil. I'm excited to welcome m Zack. Um. Phil.
Speaker 1: I've had such insight into your work. I've literally like
Speaker 1: been hanging out with police chiefs and you in the
Speaker 1: same room at the same time. And so I'll give
Speaker 1: you an opportunity to expand briefly on just how you
Speaker 1: describe what your work is, because I see you doing
Speaker 1: the data science thing, working in communities, trying to stop
Speaker 1: police from killing black and brown people in a very
Speaker 1: scientific way, and we're in a moment where it's like
Speaker 1: defund the police, and yet you're also working with police.
Speaker 1: So can you describe your work so that we can
Speaker 1: understand that better? Sure, and I know that I'm skipping ahead,
Speaker 1: but there's no there's no way to prevent me from
Speaker 1: doing that. I'm genetically predisposed. Um. When we hear people
Speaker 1: talking about defund the police, I just want to want
Speaker 1: to say, I've been hearing police talking about defund the
Speaker 1: police using very for language for years. There's no police
Speaker 1: chief that works with us that doesn't think it's a
Speaker 1: terrible idea to send law enforcement um to deal with
Speaker 1: drug overdoses, Like why would imagine the gun help with
Speaker 1: that situation? But I mean, the longest sort of what
Speaker 1: it is that we do at CPE, I mean you
Speaker 1: said it basically exactly, that we work between communities and
Speaker 1: law enforcement to help on the inside of law enforcement
Speaker 1: making them less racist and less deadly. And then on
Speaker 1: the outside, so that communities are empowered to make decisions
Speaker 1: about where they want law enforcement to go. And just
Speaker 1: as importantly, especially in this moment where they don't want
Speaker 1: law enforcement to go, the sort of key value add
Speaker 1: the thing that we do that other people hadn't been doing.
Speaker 1: We don't just calculate disparities, right, So let's say black
Speaker 1: people are four times more likely get beat up by
Speaker 1: the cops than white people, which is roughly right nationally. Right,
Speaker 1: if we imagine there's racism and policing, why on earth
Speaker 1: would we not imagine that there's racism and housing and
Speaker 1: education um and unemployment and in health care, all of
Speaker 1: which happens before any contact with police. So that four
Speaker 1: to one number, that's some police, it's some poverty, it's
Speaker 1: some other forms of racism. And I want to hold
Speaker 1: police accountable for the things that they do, right, I
Speaker 1: don't want to make them accountable for all the things
Speaker 1: they don't do, like we do for everything else. We
Speaker 1: make them accountable for all public health, for all education
Speaker 1: outs So we pro we use science to give them
Speaker 1: back a measure of justice, not just a measure of crime.
Speaker 1: And that allows communities to hold them accountable and in
Speaker 1: doing that, we've also essentially created the algorithm that says
Speaker 1: and here is where we no longer need them. So
Speaker 1: in this moment when people are talking about defunding, my
Speaker 1: hope is we're gonna end up talking a lot more
Speaker 1: about investing funding blackness. Right, But if we need a
Speaker 1: roadmap for how to do this and not have to
Speaker 1: worry so much that violence is just going to become
Speaker 1: the second pandemic in this phase, there are ways to
Speaker 1: measure that too, because there's a lot of policing that
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with violence, has nothing really to
Speaker 1: do with the fastest route to public safety. And to
Speaker 1: the degree that there's good news in the middle of
Speaker 1: the space, there is no responsible police chief who won't
Speaker 1: tell you that to their face. Zack, I want to
Speaker 1: give you a similar opportunity to break down where you
Speaker 1: fit into all this. What is the work that you're
Speaker 1: doing through Ella Baker and through and particularly through the
Speaker 1: store Oakland. Yeah, I appreciate that. At the al Baker Center,
Speaker 1: we advocate for books not bars, jobs not jails, housing
Speaker 1: and healthcare not handcuffs agenda, So we very much like alliteration,
Speaker 1: and we also like um funding a social safety net.
Speaker 1: We've seen too much investment in what we call a
Speaker 1: punishment drag net, and we want to actual safety net
Speaker 1: to be supported. I mean, if COVID nineteen shows anything,
Speaker 1: it shows that public safety actually starts with public health. UM.
Speaker 1: For so long we've said, you know, public health issues
Speaker 1: need public health solutions. We never thought we would need
Speaker 1: to say that as it relates to global pandemic. Right,
Speaker 1: but leave it to this president to use a global
Speaker 1: pandemic as just another excuse to blame, shame, scapegoat marginalized communities,
Speaker 1: people of color, and so that is that has a
Speaker 1: long history in this country, and we have been fighting
Speaker 1: since the mid nineties when it was not popular to
Speaker 1: do criminal justice reform or anything along those lines, to
Speaker 1: really advocate for UM, the funding of blackness, the funding
Speaker 1: of communities of color, the funding of dignity and low
Speaker 1: income communities and communities of color across the country. Break
Speaker 1: down what restore Oakland is and what you've tried to
Speaker 1: design in that. Yeah, for so long, we have been
Speaker 1: pushing for resources to be shifted away from sheriff's departments,
Speaker 1: probation departments, police departments, UM prisons, and towards community based
Speaker 1: supports for people who are navigating issues of homelessness, drug use, um,
Speaker 1: mental health issues, etcetera. And we finally found some success
Speaker 1: about five years ago. We moved Alameda County to move
Speaker 1: about ten million dollars away from the Sheriff and Probation
Speaker 1: Department towards basically community stuff to support people who are
Speaker 1: navigating the jail system. Now, what we found is a
Speaker 1: lot of the same nonprofit agencies were getting the funding
Speaker 1: who we're good at putting together an RFP, but we're
Speaker 1: not good at actually providing people with a job or
Speaker 1: doing restorative or transformative justice. They had no felt community connection.
Speaker 1: And so we're like, people need visual aids, sometimes government
Speaker 1: need visual aige. We decided, hey, let's create Restore Oakland
Speaker 1: to actually show what we mean by community safety. It's
Speaker 1: an eighteen thousand square foot building that houses restorative justice,
Speaker 1: one of the first dedicated spaces for restored justice in
Speaker 1: the country. Much like you wouldn't just go to a
Speaker 1: courtroom and have a sandwich or have a beer, we
Speaker 1: think restorative justice should be held in a kind of
Speaker 1: sacro sanc manner to help hold people accountable while still
Speaker 1: holding them in community. And that is within Restore Oakland,
Speaker 1: a restaurant run by formally incarcerated folks and others who
Speaker 1: have been locked out of opportunity, and nonprofit organizations that
Speaker 1: are fighting to hold not just community members accountable, but
Speaker 1: also elected officials accountable to our vision of books not bars,
Speaker 1: and jobs not jails. So all of those things come
Speaker 1: together and Restore Oakland, and you can imagine it almost
Speaker 1: as if it's like the first solar panel when it
Speaker 1: comes to public safety in our mind right, because how
Speaker 1: would you imagine a new energy future if you hadn't
Speaker 1: seen solar panels and wind turbines and those things. And
Speaker 1: so much of our imagination has come to be dominated
Speaker 1: by shows like Law and Order and Cops. And also,
Speaker 1: you know orange is the new Black. That we think
Speaker 1: of prisons as really the architecture of public safety, and
Speaker 1: we're trying to shift that in people's mind by actually
Speaker 1: providing this visual aid that sounds beautiful. It sounds like
Speaker 1: you built Wakonda, and okay, we tried. I'm still trying
Speaker 1: to get a shout out from my brother, Ryan Coogler,
Speaker 1: who also went to buy high school. Shout out, Ryan,
Speaker 1: if you could come to Restore I'll clearly to appreciate it. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's gonna hear that, because everybody's gonna hear
Speaker 1: this podcast. I wanna give you an opportunity to define
Speaker 1: a term that you dropped a few times in there,
Speaker 1: which not everyone is familiar with. You said, restorative justice.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Yeah, So, restorative justice is a
Speaker 1: process for individuals, for communities, and for nations. And on
Speaker 1: the level of individuals, it's the person who has caused harm,
Speaker 1: the person who has been harmed sitting together in a circle,
Speaker 1: surrounded by the people that support them. And what happens
Speaker 1: is an accountability plan is developed so that person has
Speaker 1: to make an ends for the harm that they have caused. Um,
Speaker 1: it's amazing because it reduces recidivism rates, meaning people are
Speaker 1: much less likely to get back in trouble again. Victims
Speaker 1: report much higher satisfaction rates because they can see the accountability.
Speaker 1: They know, here are the steps this person is taking
Speaker 1: to right this wrong. And it's amazing for democracy as well,
Speaker 1: because all those people who are in that secondary circle
Speaker 1: surrounding the hard person and the person who's caused harm
Speaker 1: really have to actually ask what could I have done
Speaker 1: to prevent this? And what can I do to make
Speaker 1: it right? So it's really building this kind of community
Speaker 1: accountability muscle that I think is absolutely critical in this
Speaker 1: moment because we got politicians that are running wild, and
Speaker 1: if we don't really have this practice of like holding
Speaker 1: people accountable in a way that isn't you know, just
Speaker 1: um like exile exile right, because you can't be answerable
Speaker 1: to someone if you can't actually hear them or be
Speaker 1: an interface with them. And we've relied on a punishment
Speaker 1: system that actually short circuits accountability rather than engenders it.
Speaker 1: And and that's what restorative justice is really all about,
Speaker 1: you know, thank you for that. When I think about
Speaker 1: the way we do policing in this country, I reminded
Speaker 1: of my first visit to a jail in this country,
Speaker 1: which is Rikers Island in New York City, and it
Speaker 1: was just a few years ago, and it stood out
Speaker 1: to me because it is a massive complex, about ten
Speaker 1: thousand people there at the time that I visited, and
Speaker 1: I had lived in New York for a decade and
Speaker 1: had no idea. It is like that Game of Thrones
Speaker 1: north of the Wall area that we are allowed to
Speaker 1: forget a part of ourselves, you know, a part of
Speaker 1: our society, our neighbors, and these were people who hadn't
Speaker 1: even been convicted of a crime. They were waiting for trial,
Speaker 1: you know, because they didn't have bail money or something.
Speaker 1: So thank you for breaking that down, Thank you for
Speaker 1: reminding us. I think that with the comunity can have
Speaker 1: a role in accountability and in achieving public safety. Paint
Speaker 1: me a picture, Phil, when we do public safety right
Speaker 1: in this country, How is it different from the way
Speaker 1: we do it now, especially given your proximity to law enforcement,
Speaker 1: your partnership with them. What does it feel like? You
Speaker 1: talked about that, like we don't do it right, and
Speaker 1: that's just not quite accurate. In this country, we absolutely
Speaker 1: do it right, just not where we're thinking about it,
Speaker 1: because you're thinking about it, like where you live in
Speaker 1: l A. We definitely don't do it right there, or
Speaker 1: where I live in New York, we don't do it
Speaker 1: like I mean, they don't do it at all in
Speaker 1: some places of where exact lives in England, right, But
Speaker 1: there is this wonderful place, not Wakonda, but it feels
Speaker 1: mythical where when somebody loses their job, they have money
Speaker 1: and they have you know, retraining community colleges, they can
Speaker 1: go to um When they have a mental health crisis,
Speaker 1: there are counselors they can talk to. When there's a breakup,
Speaker 1: they got couches they can serve all and they got
Speaker 1: friends who can support that marriage. When their kids acting wild,
Speaker 1: they have a community from call in an aunt or
Speaker 1: a or a grandmother who can talk to them, a
Speaker 1: neighbor who can take a man to teach them a trade.
Speaker 1: And when law enforcements called, it's called to deal with
Speaker 1: the most vulnerable or the most serious, and it is
Speaker 1: not too severe or too lenient because it's aligned with
Speaker 1: community values. And you're looking at me like all confused.
Speaker 1: They place. You may have driven through this place. I
Speaker 1: want to I want to take my time to pronounce
Speaker 1: the word right. I think it's called the suburbs. Is
Speaker 1: that how the suburbs? Yeah? So I know it was
Speaker 1: a long walk to get the punch line of that joke.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was worth it. It's also a
Speaker 1: long walk to the suburbs because really, exactly these public
Speaker 1: frands that doesn't get there, which we five design. They
Speaker 1: didn't want the folks who are living in the inner
Speaker 1: city to get out anyway. It's kind of like a cage,
Speaker 1: like they meant to do it that way, both on
Speaker 1: meta and in their schools. But this is not the point.
Speaker 1: The point is we do this right. Imagine a community
Speaker 1: of fifty people, we all know each other, and there's
Speaker 1: a sheriff and the sheriff just beat the hell out
Speaker 1: of the kids for petty thefts. Well, the fifty is
Speaker 1: gonna get together, We're gonna get a new sheriff because
Speaker 1: that's not how you treat kids. Now, imagine the sheriff
Speaker 1: lets the kids run wild and kids are burning down homes. Well,
Speaker 1: we don't get together as fifty people, we don't get
Speaker 1: a new sheriff, because that's not how we treat owns.
Speaker 1: The problem in larger cities and in some of the
Speaker 1: rural areas, and in fact that some of those suburbs
Speaker 1: when outsiders come in like folks and get out, is
Speaker 1: that we untether right the issue of severity and protection
Speaker 1: and we just campaign on we just message around protection
Speaker 1: because we refused to see the humanity of the people
Speaker 1: who cause those harms. So in smaller communities that have resources,
Speaker 1: there's hell to pay if you were too severe on
Speaker 1: somebody's child. But in communities where the parents of the
Speaker 1: children who are most likely to cause harms don't have
Speaker 1: any power. There are no checks on the authority to
Speaker 1: administer punishment. And that's what I'm talking about when I'm
Speaker 1: talking about how we do public safety right. Right, there's
Speaker 1: no reason for massive military policing in suburbs where they
Speaker 1: have control over their law enforcement, they wouldn't stand for it.
Speaker 1: But in systems where power is concentrated among elites and
Speaker 1: where those who are most vulnerable to underground economies and
Speaker 1: to the violence of poverty instead of in addition to
Speaker 1: the violence of street crime. In those kinds of places,
Speaker 1: policing is not just to keep everybody safe. Is protect
Speaker 1: one group of citizens against another. And when you set
Speaker 1: up policing like that, we have accountability. Police would get
Speaker 1: punished every time that the people who have power are
Speaker 1: upset with what they do. But that's a different kind
Speaker 1: of accountability than democratic accountability. And so I want us
Speaker 1: to be specific. Let's not act like we don't know
Speaker 1: how to do public safety right in America and like
Speaker 1: it's just it's this unfathomable thing. We do it all
Speaker 1: the time, we drive through it on the way to
Speaker 1: the place where we want to get stuff fixed, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not mythical, it's practical. We can hold it.
Speaker 1: The difficulty is both remembering that these are part of
Speaker 1: the same country hard if you travel back and forth,
Speaker 1: and then the price of the ticket from where we
Speaker 1: are to where we're going, because that change is real
Speaker 1: and painful, and there is the place where people are
Speaker 1: reasonably concerned about violence, and that's part of the conversation
Speaker 1: we absolutely have to have right now. I mean, I
Speaker 1: remember reading this book about the opioid crisis and reading
Speaker 1: I think it was about Burlington, Vermont and the police
Speaker 1: chief there was coordinating with the hospitals, encouraging them to
Speaker 1: use methodone or whatever it is to step folks down
Speaker 1: from the addiction. He was saying, no, don't do this,
Speaker 1: you know, law enforcement thing. Here's the public health thing.
Speaker 1: As I understand that, and I was like, my mind
Speaker 1: was blown. I was like, what in the how is
Speaker 1: the police chief, like, you know, coordinating with hospital systems
Speaker 1: in a way that actually promotes a public health response.
Speaker 1: But to Phil's point, I mean, it's real that being said, like,
Speaker 1: we live in a country that is profoundly racist, right,
Speaker 1: and so when what I often say is like, how
Speaker 1: could we think of taking care of public safety if
Speaker 1: we haven't taken care of the public and we are
Speaker 1: coming to be a majority people of color nation and
Speaker 1: we are not taking care of that majority of people. Um,
Speaker 1: and I just feel like we have to call the
Speaker 1: question of the larger system as a whole and understand
Speaker 1: that police chiefs have some say so, but also there
Speaker 1: is this huge problem. And to Phil's point, like, let's
Speaker 1: not make it all the police problem, but let's still
Speaker 1: address the larger problem. We went from a country that said,
Speaker 1: you know, the only good Indian is a dead Indian,
Speaker 1: as during our westward expansion, to neoliberal governance over the
Speaker 1: past forty fifty years that have said the only good
Speaker 1: government is death government. And I know that sounds hard,
Speaker 1: but I'm honestly believe that if recession after recession, you
Speaker 1: only fund policing in prisons, the very thing that if
Speaker 1: recession after recession, we've seen twenty three new prisons in
Speaker 1: California built just one new university. Fifty three cents of
Speaker 1: every federal dollar goes to military. As you said, Barratunity,
Speaker 1: the lion's share of resources on the city level goes
Speaker 1: to police, departments, sheriffs. You talked about sheriffs. The sheriffs
Speaker 1: are the most powerful political entities in many municipalities. And
Speaker 1: so the very things that accelerate the morbidity of black
Speaker 1: and brown people are the things that have been recession
Speaker 1: proof over the past forty fifty years. And that's not
Speaker 1: including what you know Reverend Barbera calls the death measures
Speaker 1: on the d L. So every half million people who
Speaker 1: don't have health insurance, people will die, seven hundred people
Speaker 1: dying a day from mount nutrition and poverty. Right, And
Speaker 1: so we have funded governance that is allowing and COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen and these are all pre COVID numbers. COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: is exposing this in a different way. And I think
Speaker 1: that there's a reckoning with governance that isn't actually supporting
Speaker 1: and sustaining life. That is about policing, but it's also
Speaker 1: much larger than it can I can I just add
Speaker 1: back on because my mans shout at out Brandon del Poso,
Speaker 1: who's the former chief and reliant um that is not
Speaker 1: just the outlier, that isn't what he wins awards from
Speaker 1: other chiefs. Right in the same way that Scott Thompson,
Speaker 1: who led the transition of Camden's dissolution and then rebuilding
Speaker 1: a police department. Not that that's a model, not that
Speaker 1: that's remotely close to perfect, but Scott talks about all
Speaker 1: the time, I'd rather have a boys and growth club
Speaker 1: than ten officers. This is now mainstream within law enforcement,
Speaker 1: and was ten years ago. They were saying, like, you
Speaker 1: guys want us to do everything, We can't do everything right.
Speaker 1: You can't be like, I'm gonna stop street crime and
Speaker 1: I do hair like. That's not a thing that enforcement
Speaker 1: can do. And what that means is either you reckon
Speaker 1: with the violence of poverty being something that cannot be
Speaker 1: handled with the badge and a gun, or you have
Speaker 1: decided that all you want to fund is punishment, and
Speaker 1: law enforcement gets that on some really deep level at
Speaker 1: the top, not all the rank and file, not all
Speaker 1: the sheriffs, not all the rural folks. So it's not
Speaker 1: the full profession by any means, and not the union's heads,
Speaker 1: who are often not representative of the rank and file
Speaker 1: that they're supposed to represent. But there is a class
Speaker 1: of law enforcement who's been saying now for decades, get
Speaker 1: us out of the places where you couldn't possibly train
Speaker 1: us to be shrink the size of what you're investing
Speaker 1: here and give it to someplace else. They don't like
Speaker 1: the idea of their budgets really shrinking because they already
Speaker 1: feel too stretched. They will get okay with it when
Speaker 1: they no longer get asked to be responsive to all
Speaker 1: of these other columns. And if they don't get okay
Speaker 1: with it, that's okay too. You've both talked about the
Speaker 1: power of a smaller group of people to get the
Speaker 1: outcomes that feel more humane and more just and what
Speaker 1: we would all want for ourselves. I'm looking for examples.
Speaker 1: Can you share something about what people have been able
Speaker 1: to accomplish in this arena that could give people like
Speaker 1: me and anyone who's listening a bit more faith in
Speaker 1: ourselves to change the direction of all that. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: the first thing I'll say is, like the sky will
Speaker 1: now fall, we can actually close prisons and increase public safety.
Speaker 1: And I have an example to prove it. When I
Speaker 1: first came out law school, I worked as an organizer
Speaker 1: with the Ala Baker Center, talking with families of incarcerated
Speaker 1: youth and young people were being isolated twenty three hours
Speaker 1: a day for weeks and months on end, Families driving
Speaker 1: two fifty miles just to see their kids, only to
Speaker 1: be told they couldn't visit because they had on the
Speaker 1: wrong color pair of pants or because their kid was
Speaker 1: on lock down. Unsurprisingly, giving these conditions, three out of
Speaker 1: four young people were being re arrested within like a year.
Speaker 1: And the state was spending over a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars per year per young person on this system.
Speaker 1: And so parents and grandparents and others said, we need
Speaker 1: to close these youth prisons down, um, and this is
Speaker 1: not you know, five years ago, this was turn of
Speaker 1: the century youth super predator time period. I personally was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know we can do that, but I had
Speaker 1: the good sense to listen to my elders. We organized,
Speaker 1: We got what started as a dozen families became over
Speaker 1: a thousand families. We went to the capitol in Sacramento.
Speaker 1: We were persistent and insistent. We brought those statistics to them,
Speaker 1: and the recession helped also, and over a ten year period,
Speaker 1: we closed five of eight youth prisons, and guess what,
Speaker 1: Youth crime continued to decline during that same period as
Speaker 1: we were closing down youth prisons. Now, the Nerve California
Speaker 1: wants to close the remaining three youth prisons um and
Speaker 1: we want to ensure that that is done right. But
Speaker 1: it shows that we can actually do something different. We
Speaker 1: can do something different not only when it comes to
Speaker 1: non violent offenses, but also quite frankly, when it comes
Speaker 1: to violence as well. I'll stop there, but I want
Speaker 1: to speak more about kind of violence and the possibility
Speaker 1: of taking a public health approach as it relates to
Speaker 1: that as well. I will just say, like, never doubt
Speaker 1: that a small group of people, as Margaret Mead or
Speaker 1: somebody said, can make a huge difference, right because, like,
Speaker 1: nobody believed that this group of moms and grandmothers who
Speaker 1: were derided as the welfare queens, who were believed to
Speaker 1: be the problem, could have made this change, and in
Speaker 1: coordination with the Youth Justice Coalition and amazing organizations, we
Speaker 1: were able to shut these youth prisons down and increase
Speaker 1: public safety through that process. I really appreciate you sharing
Speaker 1: that story and reminding us, you know, I think there's
Speaker 1: a model of change that a lot of us digest,
Speaker 1: which says, well, we got to get a billionaire. We
Speaker 1: did our own like Mec warrior, you know, to come
Speaker 1: in and fight on our behalf in this battle. And
Speaker 1: you're like, these are moms and grandmothers. I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of Latin X and Black moms and grandmothers who
Speaker 1: people in the State House and Sacramento are used to
Speaker 1: regularly not having to pay attention to because they don't
Speaker 1: pay a lot of property tax and they don't necessarily
Speaker 1: vote regularly because they don't give to campaigns because they
Speaker 1: can't afford to show up. And to be clear, that
Speaker 1: was part of the strategy because just by going to
Speaker 1: the capital and showing up and saying we are desperately
Speaker 1: trying to support our children and grandchildren, we were pushing
Speaker 1: back on decades and centuries of misinformation and structural racism
Speaker 1: and just racism, as Ebrahm KNDy reminds us, to just
Speaker 1: just call it racism. And so, you know, so much
Speaker 1: of the de humanization comes from separating families, and we
Speaker 1: were pushing back against that very intentionally. Bill, do you
Speaker 1: have a story of the power of people in some
Speaker 1: of these communities you're working with potentially to actually achieve
Speaker 1: a different outcome, a better outcome for more Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that. I mean, when we work in communities, that's
Speaker 1: all that we accumulate is we accumulate stories of people
Speaker 1: being more powerful than the systems that the rest of
Speaker 1: the world feels like define them. Um. I think that
Speaker 1: there's a really popular one that everyone has access to. UM.
Speaker 1: But I think it's easy to forget in this moment,
Speaker 1: which is at the height of the stop question. Fris
Speaker 1: regime and NYPD, for every one hundred thousand black males
Speaker 1: between the age of sixteen and thirty five, they were
Speaker 1: stopping a hundred and eighty nine thousand a year. That's okay,
Speaker 1: So mathematically they were stopping brothers twice or five times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you would get stop multiple times per year if
Speaker 1: you were in that age and raise demographic. That's I'm
Speaker 1: not a mathematician, but wait, I am a mathetician. So
Speaker 1: that's too many that the definition of that is just
Speaker 1: too damn many times. And the explanation was, well, this
Speaker 1: is what we have to do because crime is so
Speaker 1: out of control in those neighborhoods. So then they stopped
Speaker 1: because the court said stop, and crime continued to go down,
Speaker 1: violence continue to go down, and they said, well, you
Speaker 1: wait for it. You make us keep doing this, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna go back up again. So now what we
Speaker 1: see is as murders go up across the country, everybody saying, well,
Speaker 1: see we told you so, come on, man, you don't
Speaker 1: get an eight year window to decide that eventually, like
Speaker 1: something ablet's take up. And that's what that's sort of
Speaker 1: the moment that we're in. The thing I actually want
Speaker 1: to point to though, because that's the example of look,
Speaker 1: we don't have to be doing policing this way. That's
Speaker 1: an easy example of that. There are two things I
Speaker 1: want to point to that give me hope right now.
Speaker 1: One is the Community Navigators program actually in Minneapolis. And
Speaker 1: here's why it gives me hope. So you and I
Speaker 1: we talked about this, but it's it's usually not for
Speaker 1: camera that One of the things that I'm most passionate
Speaker 1: about in my job is dealing with the survivors of
Speaker 1: sexual assault, the survivors of the most intimate forms of
Speaker 1: violence and the second worst thing, and for some of them,
Speaker 1: even the worst thing that happens to folks who are
Speaker 1: survivors is they have to explain to somebody, no, I
Speaker 1: didn't want it. Yeah, we had had a relationship at
Speaker 1: this time. I was clear. I think I was clear.
Speaker 1: Why does it matter what I'm wearing? It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how much I was drinking. Those are the questions of
Speaker 1: the person who's supposed to protect you. Was taking your
Speaker 1: reports into the state can advocate on your behalf. It
Speaker 1: is such a violence, the things we put people through,
Speaker 1: So why do it. You can send social workers whose
Speaker 1: job it is to connect people to the services. They're
Speaker 1: gonna make them whole as people first and say when
Speaker 1: you're ready, and that might not be today, I can
Speaker 1: take a report, will be the legal report. But before
Speaker 1: we have to do any of that, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: What do you need? Are you talking to somebody about it?
Speaker 1: How's your support? So the response to crime, the response
Speaker 1: to violence, doesn't need someone armed for violence, and that
Speaker 1: basic recognition that policing doesn't have to show up whenever
Speaker 1: there's the trace of violence, especially violence has already left
Speaker 1: the scene. That allows us to imagine a more humane
Speaker 1: response to the people who were experiencing violence, who are
Speaker 1: survivors of it. So that's the first thing that makes
Speaker 1: me hopeful, and that that inspires me because that's people
Speaker 1: saying people should be responsive to this. The second thing is,
Speaker 1: so the Monday after Minneapolis City Council said all right,
Speaker 1: we're disbanding the police department, the charity counsel comes out
Speaker 1: and says, hey, would you mind if we tap y'all
Speaker 1: to be one of people who helps do this. There
Speaker 1: was five minutes before Rachel Maddow and she was gonna
Speaker 1: go on right before me, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: guess okay, by and then she went on and said,
Speaker 1: by the way, we're going to do this, Rachel Maddow
Speaker 1: asked me. I was like, yeah, if you're gonna do
Speaker 1: that thing that they said, that's how that's a great
Speaker 1: negotiating tactic you're in now. That's how he got to
Speaker 1: be chairley Council. So that week we got nine fifty
Speaker 1: calls from different cities, and there was chiefs and community
Speaker 1: members and mayors and city councils all saying, we want
Speaker 1: to be responsive to this moment because we get we've
Speaker 1: been doing public safety wrong. But how so we started
Speaker 1: putting together a roadmap, and the road map is not
Speaker 1: this is what to do. The road map is do
Speaker 1: this and then you'll be better positioned to make an
Speaker 1: informed decision. It's literally who's calling for police? What services
Speaker 1: are people calling for? Where are they going when they're
Speaker 1: on their own? What neighborhoods are blinded by crime, and
Speaker 1: which ones are blinded by police surveillance but not crime.
Speaker 1: Those are the places where you should be investing resources.
Speaker 1: And you do those four steps and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you have a map of Okay, this is what
Speaker 1: they do and where they go. Do we want them
Speaker 1: to do that? Considering that in some of these communities
Speaker 1: it's less than ten percent of the time that they're
Speaker 1: spent is on els at all, that allows for some
Speaker 1: reasonable response And the thing that makes me excited. We
Speaker 1: unveiled this with the Obama Foundation a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I did it live last week on the TV. We've
Speaker 1: had dozens of cities and we're not waiting for you
Speaker 1: all to come in. These things like things we can do,
Speaker 1: we're doing them. And they're like, oh, now that I
Speaker 1: see the numbers, we have things to do so that
Speaker 1: instead of waiting around, there's a roadmap to go. Because
Speaker 1: of course it's going to take time, but everybody should
Speaker 1: also be reasonably expected to be tired of waiting. Four
Speaker 1: hundred plus years for this right so that people want
Speaker 1: to pick it up, that they're taking it and running it.
Speaker 1: That's exciting to me. What's a way in that you've
Speaker 1: seen work that's someone who's not a full time activist
Speaker 1: or full time in this work it can do to
Speaker 1: be a part of this to help make public safety
Speaker 1: more public and more on the safety. Yeah. Um, the
Speaker 1: first thing I would say is I wanna lift up
Speaker 1: that we can actually respond to violence and a public
Speaker 1: health way. Also, I want to lift up the work
Speaker 1: of Devone Bogan in Richmond. Richmond had one of the
Speaker 1: highest per capital murder rates around two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: He came in, developed a mentorship program and supported these
Speaker 1: thirty young men who the police believed were responsible for
Speaker 1: some seventy of the crime, and over I think an
Speaker 1: eight year period helped reduce homicides by some seventy And
Speaker 1: it was profoundly simple in the sense that he was like,
Speaker 1: what do my children need? What do my adolescent children need?
Speaker 1: And basically designed a fellowship program around that to provide
Speaker 1: them with monthly stiplings, positive mentorship, and travel opportunities. And
Speaker 1: as these young men were invested in, as they saw
Speaker 1: themselves as part of the solution, rather than being derided
Speaker 1: as part of the problem. They really helped usher in
Speaker 1: a wave of peace in the city of Richmond. The
Speaker 1: work he does is now called Advanced Peace UM. And
Speaker 1: that wasn't just instrumental for them, that was instrumental for
Speaker 1: moms and grandmothers who was trying to go to the
Speaker 1: park down the street, for shopkeepers who wanted to keep
Speaker 1: their businesses open. And this didn't come through primarily a
Speaker 1: law enforcement response, but really just asking people who were
Speaker 1: believed to be responsible for the violence in a city,
Speaker 1: what needs to be done? Who do you have beef with?
Speaker 1: How do we resolve those issues? And it had a
Speaker 1: tremendous impact and effect. And so some of what we're
Speaker 1: saying that people can be doing in this moment is
Speaker 1: just be good neighbors. Understand that when someone comes through
Speaker 1: your community who maybe you don't recognize, maybe the first
Speaker 1: thing if there are darker skin color than you don't
Speaker 1: call the police. Don't do that. Don't be that neighbor.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways in which we're promoting this
Speaker 1: kind of different ethos around community safety is through an
Speaker 1: event we call Night Out for Safety and Liberation every
Speaker 1: year since the eighties, police have done this event called
Speaker 1: National Night Out, which I think has the right spirit
Speaker 1: behind it. I'm gonna be real. It has the right spirit,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, community members reclaiming safety. But I
Speaker 1: think too often police bring a very narrow definition of
Speaker 1: what community members should do to promote safety. They say,
Speaker 1: you're the eyes and ears of the police, and if
Speaker 1: you see something, say something which results in George Zimmerman
Speaker 1: murdering Trayvon Mark, it results in the kinds of calls
Speaker 1: that you know, this woman did too call the police
Speaker 1: on this bird watcher. It is that kind of culture
Speaker 1: of suspicion that I think we need to move away from.
Speaker 1: And so Night Out for Safety and Liberation is an
Speaker 1: opportunity for people to reclaim community safety in a more
Speaker 1: holistic way, to recognize that we have hearts, we have hands,
Speaker 1: we have minds, we have a lot of things that
Speaker 1: we can do to contribute to community safety. And this
Speaker 1: year it will be on October six. There's some thirty
Speaker 1: cities participated last year, and it's growing every year. So
Speaker 1: we're really encouraging folks, especially especially in this year when
Speaker 1: the two visions of safety are on such full display
Speaker 1: that he keeps us safe lie of Donald Trump, which
Speaker 1: is quite frankly, an abusive lie. It's the lie that says,
Speaker 1: only trust me, even while you're doing the dirt and
Speaker 1: causing the harm scapegoats entire communities and individuals. We reject
Speaker 1: that lie. We believe that we keep us safe, that
Speaker 1: all of us contribute to community safety, and that's the
Speaker 1: vision we're bringing with Night Out for Safety and Liberation.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that people can do is
Speaker 1: just contribute and get involved in that event. We're gonna
Speaker 1: go to questions. First up, we have Sarah Hughes. Where
Speaker 1: are you in and what's your question? I'm in Rochester,
Speaker 1: New York, and I wanted to ask a question about
Speaker 1: the basic design structures within our society being fundamentally hierarchical,
Speaker 1: and if that is something that you think may have
Speaker 1: contributed to power and balances because it's designed in a
Speaker 1: way that aggregates power at the top. I'm curious to
Speaker 1: know to what extent you think that is a factor,
Speaker 1: and also in what ways this conversation might be informed
Speaker 1: by reimagining the models. So I'll go ahead and hit
Speaker 1: that one first. Um. Yes, also, yes, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's enough specificity for you. Um, So I'll expand
Speaker 1: just a little bit. It just it wouldn't make sense
Speaker 1: for law enforcement to continue to engage in these behaviors
Speaker 1: if there weren't people who said, yeah, that's about right right.
Speaker 1: And let's keep in mind that in many communities nine
Speaker 1: one one is a larger driver of contact between law
Speaker 1: enforcement and communities that are officer initiated, which means that
Speaker 1: law enforcement ends up serving as the personal racism concierge
Speaker 1: um for Karen's all over the world. If it weren't okay,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be that way. So the question is how
Speaker 1: many people are okay with it and what levels of
Speaker 1: power to the folks who aren't okay with it have
Speaker 1: to pull Because clearly there are communities that say that
Speaker 1: we've had enough. I think pretty much everybody who's in
Speaker 1: the audience here is that we've had enough, but we're
Speaker 1: not enough to get that done at least we haven't been.
Speaker 1: So that means we change tactics, change strategies, We have
Speaker 1: a different approach to how them to leverage our power,
Speaker 1: which is why we see folks out in the streets
Speaker 1: six seventy days in a row, unprecedented in US history.
Speaker 1: That's a way of engaging in democracy, and we put
Speaker 1: pressure on the people who do feel that discomfort only
Speaker 1: when we put pressure there. But remember that the Dick
Speaker 1: Wolf Show is not law. It's law and work. And
Speaker 1: the ordered part is the problem. Because if I am
Speaker 1: empowered to keep order, and my idea of order is
Speaker 1: the social hierarchy as it stands, I'm allowed to use
Speaker 1: force when you step out of line. And that's the
Speaker 1: that's the gospel truth for law enforcement, right, is that
Speaker 1: they're also order enforcement. So again, yes, real quick, because
Speaker 1: it's racism, but it's also patriarchy. We live in a
Speaker 1: society that undervalues taking care of people, and all of
Speaker 1: the caring profession, from teaching to health care to so
Speaker 1: many other things that actually are about safety are underfunded
Speaker 1: and under resource and that is as a result of
Speaker 1: that form of human hierarchy. Thank you, Zack. That's a
Speaker 1: great addition. Um and creating more of a culture of
Speaker 1: care is something that we should do. So thank you, Sarah,
Speaker 1: Thank you Phil, Thank you Zack. Next up, Jesse Fable, Well,
Speaker 1: let us know where you are and then what's your
Speaker 1: question you're topic. I'm in Minneapolis, so it's it's been
Speaker 1: a whirlwind, but been engaged, been excited, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of work from organizations like Reclaim the Block about
Speaker 1: changing the city charter, taking the police off, putting community
Speaker 1: safety and violence prevention in. And I'm wondering what all
Speaker 1: of you I think, is this the appropriate first step?
Speaker 1: Is this necessary for change to even happen? Where is
Speaker 1: it pretty mature? So as a scientist, as one of
Speaker 1: the nation's leading experts on these issues, it's really important
Speaker 1: for me to say clearly, I have no idea. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the right next steps are because I
Speaker 1: have a sense of what the goal is. Everybody wants
Speaker 1: to live in a community where no one has to
Speaker 1: call the police, right. Police want to live in that community.
Speaker 1: They understand that that's their job to put themselves out
Speaker 1: of business in a certain kind of way, though that's
Speaker 1: not how they're run. They understand concepts of that's their job.
Speaker 1: And everybody understands that we should have more options when
Speaker 1: we're in crisis than just imagine a gun, right or
Speaker 1: imagine a gun an ambulance for a fire truck. Like
Speaker 1: we understand that, but how do we get there? I
Speaker 1: don't know what I will say is it's both incumbent
Speaker 1: upon us to move quickly and not to rush. Four
Speaker 1: d plus years worth of oppression deserves a plan, like
Speaker 1: you should put a plan in place, and it should
Speaker 1: be one that's based both in something you can communicate
Speaker 1: clearly and message clearly with it with a community and
Speaker 1: that's got some kind of evidence nearby, but it won't
Speaker 1: be evidence on what's worked because we've not done this before.
Speaker 1: We've not managed to change across what I would encourage
Speaker 1: folks to do in terms of as we move through
Speaker 1: these processes, it's okay to demand. So how are you
Speaker 1: going to deal with violence? Right? How are you going
Speaker 1: to deal with the current staffing issues that you've got,
Speaker 1: and how are you gonna know that? On the other
Speaker 1: side of this, you have given to these vulnerable communities
Speaker 1: a definition of public safety that they agree with, because
Speaker 1: if they don't feel safe, guess who's not calling the cops.
Speaker 1: And in a neighborhood where no one wants to call
Speaker 1: the cops, that is a great place to crime. Right.
Speaker 1: If I wanted to crime, I would crime in places
Speaker 1: where no one wanted to report crime, and that means
Speaker 1: everybody is less safe. In the same way that you
Speaker 1: have these small communities that can't social distance and now
Speaker 1: everybody's sick, right, the social networks that spread violence are
Speaker 1: literally the exact same. We have these small communities where
Speaker 1: they can't get out of the crimes trap and the
Speaker 1: violence trap, and it spreads. Suicide spreads that way, done
Speaker 1: violent spreads that way. Virus spreads that way. We could
Speaker 1: be using these same systems to trace back the virus
Speaker 1: to identify the folks most at risk for other kinds
Speaker 1: of violence. We don't. You can demand that, and that's
Speaker 1: the best we're gonna do. Make sure that they're tracking
Speaker 1: it enough so that they can say we did this
Speaker 1: and we messed up, because otherwise they're going to claim
Speaker 1: that they want and the other side's gonna claim they
Speaker 1: lost either way. And I would just say, don't keep
Speaker 1: doing the same allocation or misallocation of resources, especially in
Speaker 1: the context of a coming depression due to COVID. We
Speaker 1: see municipality still giving the line share of their resources
Speaker 1: to sheriff's department, rather than understanding we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: ton of homeless people, We're gonna have people who are hungry,
Speaker 1: and we need to actually this is the rainy day.
Speaker 1: We need to fund people's survival. The other thing I'd
Speaker 1: add is like Crises Act in California is an act
Speaker 1: to create sort of a pilot program for a different
Speaker 1: form of response to emergencies that people would be able
Speaker 1: to call upon and in those communities where people don't
Speaker 1: feel safe calling the police would have a different access
Speaker 1: and resource that has to be funded and scaled and publicized.
Speaker 1: How people know about it. Rabbi Jenny coming up next.
Speaker 1: I think it's the first time I've ever had a
Speaker 1: rabbi call into the show. I feel so special. Rabbi Jenny,
Speaker 1: let us know where you are and what's your question.
Speaker 1: I'm calling in from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and my
Speaker 1: question is for community leaders like myself, what do we
Speaker 1: do in situations where we need support in terms of security.
Speaker 1: Because the Jewish community, I know, the Muslim community, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are other communities, we're constantly under various
Speaker 1: kinds of threats and we need help to protect ourselves.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, don't want to be complicit
Speaker 1: with the police structure. Also, we don't want to put
Speaker 1: our members of color under any kind of threat to
Speaker 1: either themselves physically or emotionally when they come into the
Speaker 1: communities and if they see police officers, whether they're in
Speaker 1: uniform or not. So my question is, how can we
Speaker 1: provide adequate security for our members without getting into this
Speaker 1: complicit relationship. It's a fantastic question. And the model that
Speaker 1: I might turn to is the way that schools have
Speaker 1: started to remove law enforcement because they're also concerned They
Speaker 1: got outside of folks who are not in the school,
Speaker 1: particularly concerns about gang affiliation. So what do you do? Well,
Speaker 1: they some have hired private secure already, and it turns
Speaker 1: out that does a lot of the same things that
Speaker 1: law enforcement does. Right, someone said, well, we'll keep the
Speaker 1: law enforcement, will push them further out. That means that
Speaker 1: they're further away from the violence when it happens. But
Speaker 1: there are models in Phoenix and in Detroit and in
Speaker 1: Houston where what they do is they make outreach to
Speaker 1: the very folks they're concerned about committing acts of violence,
Speaker 1: and they say, what is it that we need to
Speaker 1: do to make sure that you are safe as you
Speaker 1: approach our community. And they talk to the folks who
Speaker 1: are the targets and say, who are you afraid of
Speaker 1: and they build a bridge where the folks who are
Speaker 1: most aligned with that violence, folks who are most concerned
Speaker 1: about having violence done, they're essentially community interrupters of that violence.
Speaker 1: And so it's a kind of radical love where you're
Speaker 1: doing outreach two groups where you've got concerned the violence
Speaker 1: is happening, like you stet folks up as protection but
Speaker 1: from community. Now that can happen in places where the
Speaker 1: violence is fists and clubs and knives. It's much harder
Speaker 1: when you have organizations that are dedicated to the termination
Speaker 1: of the group of people inside the building. There are
Speaker 1: not radical anti high schoolers in the way that there
Speaker 1: are radical anti semites, right, So that model doesn't work everywhere.
Speaker 1: But knowing your enemy, as so many people who are
Speaker 1: survivors of violence already do, is often the right model
Speaker 1: in the context of anti Semitism or anti blackness for
Speaker 1: churches that are concerned about that. I don't know that
Speaker 1: there's a model that I love that solves it, in
Speaker 1: part because we have just so many guns, and it's
Speaker 1: so very difficult to protect against guns without armor and
Speaker 1: guns of your own. And this is a place where
Speaker 1: many people do end up going back to a form
Speaker 1: of law enforcement, which is off duty. They're working at
Speaker 1: the behest of the folks local, but there's not a
Speaker 1: perfect solve. Which is part of the work that frankly
Speaker 1: Zach has been doing so well for so long is
Speaker 1: building these bridges between these areas. But we don't solve
Speaker 1: mass incarceration without talking about violence, and we don't solve
Speaker 1: the problems of violence without talking about access to guns.
Speaker 1: These are the same issue. So for you, I would
Speaker 1: say again in my most full throated from my chef voice,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but there are models of community violence
Speaker 1: interruption that, depending on where the threats are coming from,
Speaker 1: you might want to invest. Again, I'm happy to talk
Speaker 1: to you offline on that, and I want to acknowledge
Speaker 1: and appreciate you name in the gun issue, Phil The
Speaker 1: United States is a nation of guns, populated with a
Speaker 1: few people as well. And I think there is a
Speaker 1: lurking truth around this whole conversation of public safety and
Speaker 1: policing that guns are a major player in the fear
Speaker 1: that is often cited, not unreasonably by law enforcement officers,
Speaker 1: fear for my life. You know, you look at the
Speaker 1: distribution of calls for police and maybe four or five
Speaker 1: percent or explicitly violence in the headline. Then it's like
Speaker 1: traffic stop is a domestic dispute, but a gun could
Speaker 1: be anywhere, you know. So it's like, well, if any
Speaker 1: interaction is potentially a violent interaction, And I guess I
Speaker 1: understand why you need a grenade, maybe not a grenade
Speaker 1: launch that still feels a little whild, but like a shield.
Speaker 1: And so I don't have an answer either, but I
Speaker 1: do think they're intertwined. As you said, they're connected, and
Speaker 1: to create the public safety we want, we're going to
Speaker 1: also have to contend with our long term addiction and
Speaker 1: obsession with this wild easy access to firearms, which has
Speaker 1: made us all less safe and a culture of violence.
Speaker 1: If we're being really you know, I think we exists
Speaker 1: in a country that has glorified violence in different ways,
Speaker 1: and it's about shifting that culture in addition to shifting
Speaker 1: the actual availability of guns, you know. And I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the time. I know Barntona is gonna have the
Speaker 1: last word, but I'm gonna go ahead and take this
Speaker 1: little hand off here because I think this is one
Speaker 1: of the central issues moving forward. I talked about it before.
Speaker 1: You can't solve massa carceration without dealing with violence, because
Speaker 1: most folks are not who are in prisons and jails
Speaker 1: are not low level nonviolent drug arrests. Like, that's just
Speaker 1: not the reality of who's being put into cages. If
Speaker 1: we don't deal with how we think about violence, then
Speaker 1: all we're gonna have. We have a bunch of platitudes,
Speaker 1: a bunch of incremental elements on our entire penal system.
Speaker 1: But anybody does something that gets categorized as violent, by
Speaker 1: the way, breaking into a home where there isn't anybody
Speaker 1: that gets categorized as violent, right, that's gonna be how
Speaker 1: we get caught up and how we fail to meet
Speaker 1: this moment. So like, if I'm thinking about what I
Speaker 1: want everybody who's listening and watching and here with us
Speaker 1: in real time or later to be doing, I think
Speaker 1: the most important thing is don't look away. We have
Speaker 1: just begun to scratch the surface, and the only way
Speaker 1: to the light through one of these moments is through
Speaker 1: a pile of bodies. There will be another and another
Speaker 1: and another. And if we get discouraged or dispirited in
Speaker 1: this moment with just this, that we weren't worthy of
Speaker 1: the journey and if we're trying to make a more
Speaker 1: perfect union, if this is a national or even if
Speaker 1: this is a spiritual journey for individuals, we can't look away.
Speaker 1: I remember very clearly Alton Sterling killed Baton Rouge, groups
Speaker 1: of people who loved him, who cared for him. I
Speaker 1: still get text messages every two to three weeks from folks. Right,
Speaker 1: that's four years later talking about the cameras one away,
Speaker 1: But I'm not done. When Gwen Carr and Sabrina Fulton
Speaker 1: talk about their loved ones they lost to police violence.
Speaker 1: The second most painful moment after hearing that news was
Speaker 1: when the cameras turned away, and we didn't sustain the
Speaker 1: efforts to get ourselves educated and to be ready for
Speaker 1: the next one. So we're showing up like we're brand
Speaker 1: new to this, when as a nation, we're not brand
Speaker 1: new to this. This is every couple of days. It's
Speaker 1: just every thirty or so years we decided to care
Speaker 1: and decided to say that this is going to be
Speaker 1: the time. We've now heard that every single time. And
Speaker 1: I want to remind us into immediately after what happened
Speaker 1: in the uprising in l A, we got the ninety
Speaker 1: four Crime Bill, in two years later. We got Trump right.
Speaker 1: In the late sixties when the police reform was the thing,
Speaker 1: as was prisident jail reform. We don't keep that when
Speaker 1: we talked about some rights moment, but it was a
Speaker 1: major thing. You know what we got nixing. These moments
Speaker 1: are immediately followed by regressions of great moral vulgarity in
Speaker 1: this nation's history. And if we look away now, if
Speaker 1: we don't get ourselves mostly prepared for what's next, I
Speaker 1: am very concerned that we will see the same thing
Speaker 1: I'm your six years after furtherisson. Thank you for that,
Speaker 1: Phil Zack. Is there anything you want to offer up
Speaker 1: for people to do to be constructive, to be committed
Speaker 1: on this moral journey? I appreciate the question. Cornell West
Speaker 1: said that you know, justice is what love looks like
Speaker 1: in public, and Stevie Wonder said love is in need
Speaker 1: of love today and saying it so beautifully. And I
Speaker 1: just know that the hearts of the folks on this
Speaker 1: call who have called in want to see a nation
Speaker 1: that is just and that is beautiful and that is loving.
Speaker 1: And part of that, I think is resetting our priorities.
Speaker 1: And I know that money doesn't move everything, but we
Speaker 1: do need a reset of our values through our budgets
Speaker 1: and to actually fund the things that keep us safe, food, clothes, shelter, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So much of the violence often stems from people not
Speaker 1: having enough, and that's not all forms of violence, but
Speaker 1: that is a critical aspect of it. And I think
Speaker 1: we can do better to take care of the public
Speaker 1: and therefore to take care of public safety. I've been
Speaker 1: dreaming of this conversation for a while and I want
Speaker 1: to thank Zack Nora's Dr Phil Goff. I appreciate you
Speaker 1: as a friend, as a citizen, as a brother. Thank
Speaker 1: you for for what you both have been doing, and
Speaker 1: thanks for giving so generously of your perspective in your time.
Speaker 1: Just now I feel charged. I think I feel motivated
Speaker 1: and a little immobile at the same time. They're the wave.
Speaker 1: Phil talked about this pattern and his ask of us
Speaker 1: to don't look away the idea that he's still in
Speaker 1: communication with previous involuntary martyrs or the family is thereof
Speaker 1: It's very humbling and very emotional and very real thing.
Speaker 1: Zach said, public safety starts with public health, and nowhere
Speaker 1: could that and should that be more clear than in
Speaker 1: the middle of a pandemic. Our moral values are our
Speaker 1: budget documents, as revealing of our morality is made clear.
Speaker 1: We have prioritized certain choices over others. We have prioritized
Speaker 1: riot shields of a face shields and gas masks of nine.
Speaker 1: We have prioritized arrests over stopping the spread and arresting
Speaker 1: the course of a virus. We have prioritized punishment and
Speaker 1: that form of pain overhealing and true accountability. And we've
Speaker 1: often done it in the name of victims who are
Speaker 1: nowhere present in the form of justice that we have
Speaker 1: practiced most of the time, there are hints. Phil reminded
Speaker 1: us that the suburbs show us a little window, a
Speaker 1: little more wakanda, a glimpse of what is possible. But
Speaker 1: even there there is unrest in the spirit, and is
Speaker 1: not entirely the vision that we want. And Zach reminded
Speaker 1: us that the most dismissed can often be at the
Speaker 1: center of change. The mothers and the grandmothers who are
Speaker 1: so easily overlooked might have more power when they show up.
Speaker 1: Maybe they even doubted their power in the moment. But
Speaker 1: now we have evidence to show the closure of youth
Speaker 1: detension centers and prisons in the state of California as
Speaker 1: crime continued to fall. And I am deeply humbled by
Speaker 1: the acknowledgement and the role of guns and all of this.
Speaker 1: I don't pretend that this is easy, that you just
Speaker 1: flip a switch. You take the money from the cops
Speaker 1: and you put it into the counselors and shazam new
Speaker 1: great society, instant society. No no, no, no no. It's
Speaker 1: taken a long time to create this perverse structure that
Speaker 1: we're living in calling public safety. It's gonna take a
Speaker 1: while to unravel it, and guns will need to be
Speaker 1: a part of that unraveling. And so I asked that
Speaker 1: we contend with that, that we not look away from
Speaker 1: that either, and then we not look away from each other. Um,
Speaker 1: there is there is great promise in this moment. There's
Speaker 1: great work ahead. There's more tears that are gonna come.
Speaker 1: And the good news is there's more of us that
Speaker 1: have yet to really step into the ring. And so
Speaker 1: I am hardened by the idea that if more of
Speaker 1: us did that, we get more done. Hey you, it's
Speaker 1: me again, It's just us, And I want to say
Speaker 1: we are living in a dark time in so many ways,
Speaker 1: especially in the area of policing, punishment, and public safety.
Speaker 1: Yet there is good news closed youth prisons in California,
Speaker 1: reallocation of resources for sexual salt survivors in Minneapolis, the
Speaker 1: end of stopping frisk techniques in New York City, and
Speaker 1: the creation of restorative justice models we want to fund,
Speaker 1: not just bad policing models we want to defund. If
Speaker 1: you have examples of positive, non punitive public safety in
Speaker 1: your community, send them to us at comments at how
Speaker 1: to citizen dot com. On a personal note, I am
Speaker 1: so happy to have had that conversation with Zach and Phil.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I have known them both since
Speaker 1: we were college freshmen in and I'm amazed at what
Speaker 1: they've helped create in the world. I consider them both
Speaker 1: to be model citizens. Now it's your term. In each episode,
Speaker 1: we share things you can do internally and externally to
Speaker 1: strengthen your citizen practice. Don't worry about remembering all the details.
Speaker 1: We post them on how to citizen dot com for
Speaker 1: this episode keeping us safe. Beyond policing, here's what you
Speaker 1: can do for internal actions. Now. These are things that
Speaker 1: help you become more aware, more empathetic, more knowledgeable and
Speaker 1: are a key step in how to citizen before you
Speaker 1: go trapes and off into the world telling other folks
Speaker 1: what to do. Here are some options for internal actions.
Speaker 1: It starts with you, so we want you to explore
Speaker 1: your own relationship to feeling safe and living among your neighbors.
Speaker 1: Here are a set of questions you can answer. What
Speaker 1: do you need to feel safe in your community? What
Speaker 1: makes you feel unsafe in your community? How do you
Speaker 1: get to know your neighbors? When was the last time
Speaker 1: you even made eye contact with a neighbor? Has a
Speaker 1: neighbor ever made you feel unsafe? What happened and what
Speaker 1: would have made it better? Another option for internal actions,
Speaker 1: and we're channeling Dr Phil Goff here, don't look away.
Speaker 1: Get educated on how policing works where you live. Here's
Speaker 1: a set of things you should find out. How much
Speaker 1: of your city and county budget go to the police.
Speaker 1: What percentage of this would rank? Is this for all
Speaker 1: the spending? Who actually runs law enforcement in your area?
Speaker 1: Is it a commissioner, a chief, a sheriff who pays
Speaker 1: their bills? What's your most local access to law enforcement?
Speaker 1: Do you even know where the closest precinct is? And
Speaker 1: who's already working on addressing the challenges in this area
Speaker 1: where you live. Identify who's responsible for and makes public
Speaker 1: safety decisions where you live, and find out which positions
Speaker 1: get voted on. Lastly, in this area, when is the
Speaker 1: next election for these positions in your community, who's running,
Speaker 1: who aligns with your values? And the final option on
Speaker 1: internal actions. This comes from Zach. Inspired by Zach Good Neighbors,
Speaker 1: don't just call the cops. Know who you can call
Speaker 1: instead of the police. Create resource, a list of numbers
Speaker 1: you can keep on hand or enter into your phone.
Speaker 1: We have a great example in the show notes of
Speaker 1: this for non police resources to intervene in certain public
Speaker 1: safety challenges. As a bonus, you could create these alternative
Speaker 1: guides physically and digitally and share them with your neighbors,
Speaker 1: local businesses, and even beyond. Now for some external actions,
Speaker 1: we've got three groups that you can work with, take
Speaker 1: their lead, and lend your assistance to their efforts to
Speaker 1: keep us safer. Dr Phil Goff's Center for Policing Equity
Speaker 1: has published a roadmap for exploring new models of funding
Speaker 1: public safety. It's been requested by over nine hundred fifty
Speaker 1: cities across the country. It's a great starting point in
Speaker 1: his organization has high credibility with law enforcement and with
Speaker 1: community activists, So check that out and find out if
Speaker 1: your community is mind up. Lend your voice to Campaign Zero,
Speaker 1: another effort to fix what's broken and policing in our country.
Speaker 1: Support its nationwide campaign to end police Violence. They have
Speaker 1: a tool right on their website where you can track
Speaker 1: legislation and see where your state sits in that progress bar.
Speaker 1: And the last external group is what Zach mentioned. You
Speaker 1: can join or create an event as part of the
Speaker 1: Night Out for Safety and Liberation. That data is October
Speaker 1: six this year. And if you don't feel comfortable going
Speaker 1: out physically, there are online ways to also support this effort.
Speaker 1: There's even a discussion guide that you can run with
Speaker 1: your family, your community, your company about what safety means
Speaker 1: for your community. Lastly, there's a an app and a
Speaker 1: tool built by the American Civil Liberties Union that encourages
Speaker 1: us to be supportive bystanders and report on police interactions.
Speaker 1: The a c LU has made this easy their mobile
Speaker 1: Justice app. Justice seems to depend more and more on
Speaker 1: bystanders recording interactions. It's how we know so much of
Speaker 1: what is wrong again, check the show notes for all
Speaker 1: these details, or you can, you know, scroll back and
Speaker 1: play this again. If you'd rather have me say it
Speaker 1: out loud to you, I could understand that. We are
Speaker 1: so grateful to Zach Norris and Dr Phil Goff for
Speaker 1: helping us expand our definition of public safety. Visit Policing
Speaker 1: Equity dot org to explore Phil's organization, or at Policing
Speaker 1: Equity on social media, and you can find him on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Dr Phil Goff. That's two f's. For Zach's work,
Speaker 1: visit Ella Baker Center dot org or at Ella Baker
Speaker 1: Center on social media. He's Zach W. Norris. That's z
Speaker 1: A C h W n O R R I S
Speaker 1: on Twitter and is at Zach Norris dot com. I
Speaker 1: also encourage you to read his book, We Keep Us Safe,
Speaker 1: and we even have an online bookshop where you can
Speaker 1: buy it and books by all of our guests. So again,
Speaker 1: check the show notes or our website at how to
Speaker 1: Citizen dot com, where we post the episodes, we post
Speaker 1: a transcript and all of these resources and more. If
Speaker 1: you liked what you've heard here, please share the show,
Speaker 1: leave a review, sign up for my newsletter at how
Speaker 1: to citizen dot com, where I will announce upcoming live
Speaker 1: tapings and more from audience members like you. How To
Speaker 1: Citizen with Barrattune Day as a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio podcast executive produced by Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Stewart and barrattune Day Thurston, Produced by Joel Smith, Edited
Speaker 1: by Justin Smith. Powered by you