WEBVTT - Martin Horn 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.520 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.600 I went to Rahway Prison in New Jersey now called 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.600 East Jersey State Prison to do research for a film. 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.599 Over the course of two weeks, I interviewed several inmates 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.880 who were incarcerated there. I met armed robbers, rapists, drug dealers, 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.720 and murderers, and I'll never forget one minute of it. 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:32.000 For over forty years, Martin Horn's career has focused on 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.599 men like the ones I met and the prisons they 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:39.040 live in. He's held every imaginable job in corrections, from 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:43.200 debating the fairness of states sentencing guidelines to fixing leaky 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:47.720 water pipes in aging facilities. In two thousand two, Mayor 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.599 Bloomberg appointed Horn Commissioner of the New York City Department 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.640 of Probation. A year later, in an unprecedented move, Bloomberg 0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:00.280 gave Horn an additional job, Commissioner of Corrections. Horn held 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.320 both positions until he left in two thousand nine. Leaving 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.760 public office has allowed Martin horn to be more vocal 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.720 about his opinions on prisons, sentencing, and how to deal 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.640 with our nation's drug problem. I would legalize drugs across 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.680 the board. You would really legalize all of them, You 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:24.360 would legalize old dress. Yes, that's a pretty well, well, 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:26.920 I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that while I 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.240 worked for a governor or a mayor who was an 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.679 elected definition. Why wouldn't you say that then? As opposed 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.520 to know because I had a mortgage debate. Martin Horne's 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.200 career in corrections started right out of college. My first 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:40.160 job was as a New York State parole officer. And 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:41.839 how did you What was it that led you down 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:47.520 that path? Um? I graduated college, I was twenty one 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:51.240 years old. I needed a job, and I took a 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.720 civil service test. New York State at that time had 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:55.600 a test called the Professional Careers Test, and it was 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.280 sort of a generalist examination, and if you passed it, 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.440 it qualified for a variety of positions. I grew up 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:08.280 in Brooklyn, uh in Flappish, my father from fourth All right, well, 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:09.959 so you took this, What did you want to be 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.320 a police officer? Was that the first I wanted a job? 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:15.160 The family and civil service and police and law enforce? 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.280 Not not at all, I said. When I took the job, 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:19.799 I didn't know there was such a thing as a 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.040 parole officer. I had never thought of it. And then 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:24.080 then so you took this testament to this test and 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.200 I got fairly good grade. And so I started getting 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:27.960 job offers from the State of New York. I got 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.520 an offer to become a purchasing agent for what was 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.120 then called the East Hudson Highway Authority. I got an 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:38.280 offer to be a business office person at Downstate Medical 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.360 Center in Brooklyn. But then I I actually I took 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:43.720 the job to become a paroleer. So I had I 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:45.679 knew a guy who was doing it. He said it 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:47.800 was a good job. They trained you, the pay was 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.720 the training. Well, actually I was in a two year 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.400 trainee ship. It was two years, and they it was 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:55.320 on the job training. They started you with about six 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:57.960 weeks of classroom training. The first thing they did was 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.880 they assigned me to a unit they had then which 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.160 they no longer have called the employment unit. In our job, 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.639 we would get a paperwork on individuals who are coming 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.040 home from New York State prisons who needed jobs. And 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.560 we literally pounded the pavement in New York City, walked 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:13.880 all over. Each had sort of a neighborhood. I had 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.520 Long Island City and each day, I got five or 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:20.680 ten guys names and their backgrounds on little five by 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:22.120 eight cards, and I have to go out and find 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.200 them jobs. Where was people's attitudes toward employing those people 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.799 back then, Well, they actually we had a very sophisticated system. 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:30.680 We knew employers who had previously hired employees and they 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.079 were disposed, and they were disposed, and many of them said, look, 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.280 I hired a guy from Clinton and he was the 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.640 best guy I trusted up with. That was that was. 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.320 So we did that for about six weeks. Then they 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.720 actually sent me to Sing Sing for I think two months, 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.640 where I had to meet with inmates who were becoming 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.560 eligible for release on parole and helped them to prepare 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:53.520 for their appearance before the border parole and write a 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.560 report about them to the Board of Parole. Then they 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.080 sent me to a unit. Back then, before a man 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.000 or a woman could released from prison, they had to 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.400 have an acceptable residence and a job, a real job. 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:10.040 And so she were interacting and during this time with yes, 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.120 but I wasn't supervising. I was. I was interacted with families. 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:14.920 I was learning how to do investigations. So for the 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.160 guy that took this test in nineteen sixty nine. Who 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:19.360 didn't have an eye towards this kind of work. When 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:21.800 you were interacting with these people, what did you take 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:25.000 from it? It was fascinating. Where else do you see 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:29.279 the varieties of human behavior? I was the drum. I 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:33.200 had grown up in a middle class home in Brooklyn, 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.839 on the edge of Brownsville. I was familiar with Brown's 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:42.599 villain Ease, New York. They were adjacent neighborhoods. Yes, not 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.720 as tough as now, not as desperate as now, but Oceanville, Brownsville, 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:51.760 Ocean I was as tough, and and the desperation of 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.760 the families, and more importantly to me, the dignity of 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:56.680 the families that we're making it. I used to come 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.920 home and say, what's remarkable is not how much crime 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.520 there is, but how little crime there is when you 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.000 see how people are living right and so to this day, 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.920 when much people you try to hang between poverty and crime, 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.160 I said, listen, there are more people who grow up 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.119 and live in poverty who don't commit crime. Yeah, And 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.200 and so it was fascinating, and then you know, before 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.440 I turned around, it just turned into a career and 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.159 I enjoyed it and I did, well, When did you 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.120 become an actual parole officer where you are well after 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.000 after the first year you went from being a parole 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.720 officer trainee one to becoming a parole officer trainee to 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.359 classic civil service, and then at the end of the 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.000 second year you became a full parole officer and you 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.760 got more cases assigned to you, and you worked fairly independent. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.520 Did your attitude, and this is a very broad question, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:48.680 but did your overall attitude toward paroled inmates evolve over 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:50.960 the years where you were more at eye level with 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.520 them and hands on with them, And then it changed 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:55.560 you became more of an administrator and it became head 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.320 of the department. I really think that my attitude towards 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:04.039 imprisoned and formally imprisoned people was formed during those early 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.040 years as a parole officer. It was one of his 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.599 recognizing that every one of them was just a normal, 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:16.240 ordinary guy. They were all guys back then who had 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:21.279 made bad judgments. I met very few, really very few 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.320 who were downright evil and mean. They were pushed loves. 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:26.800 I said to one guy at one time, this was 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:28.760 a guy. This is when you could smoke on the 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.160 on the subway He had a cigarette lighter that was 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:33.160 in the shape of a derringer. He took it out 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.239 and a cop was looking at him, and he held 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:38.080 his arm out and aimed it at the cop. And 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.560 he got arrested. And I said to him, if stupidity 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.320 was a crime, you would get the death penalty. A 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.039 lot of them were addicted to drugs. And I met 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.040 their families and they were just folks. And you know, there, 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:51.520 but for the grace of God, could go any one 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.200 of us. I agree with you. I often think to myself, 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.200 my God, how many moments in my life could something 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.640 have gone wrong? Or I could be in a docket 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:02.200 and I could be in a courtroom and I could 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:04.640 be facing prison time and probably had the benefit of 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.920 far better circumstances than most of these guys, Right, they didn't, 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.240 You know, they had difficulty Frighten John. When you see 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.720 people who do have the benefit of these circumstances and 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:17.119 still commit crimes, mo, Yeah, I always think to myself, 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.800 we've got it wrong. We need be having longer sentences 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.920 for white collar crime than we do. For I've always felt, 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.800 and I said this even in my last years as 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:27.680 the head of a large corrections agency. This is what 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:29.800 I said to my staff. I said, this is our 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.880 standard of care. It is that every person in our 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.240 custody is to be treated as we would want our 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.560 own child treated if they were in that circumstance. You 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.920 felt that, I absolutely felt, because for most people, you know, 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.840 you think about prison and imprisonment in our society, you know, 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.360 prison is divided into a dual function. There's to protect 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.240 the public and to take away these predatory people and 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.840 put them away, and then the rehabilitative aspect of it. 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.960 And most publics sept that dichotomy. I don't tell me, well, 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.160 I don't buy rehabilitation by that way. You mean, I 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.360 don't think that prisoners do a very good job. I 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.840 think it is a valid social purpose two punish people 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.559 to reinforce our social norms. That's why we punish people. 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.440 It is a valid social purpose to punish people, to 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.040 extract vengeance in the name of society on behalf of 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:27.720 aggrieved victims. It's a valid social purpose to incapacitate people 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.600 who endanger us. See, that's the more important to me. 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.560 And the prison system does those three things pretty well. 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.640 There was a sociologist, Hans Motok, who once said, you 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.400 can't train an aviator in a submarine. You can't train 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:41.600 a man to live in the community in prison. And 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.920 if a person needs rehabilitation and they're not dangerous, the 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.280 best place to rehabilitate, whatever the hell that means, is 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.000 in the community where they're gonna have to live. Now, 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.080 let me ask you that someone said something to me 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.160 on this visit to Rahway, and this is probably the 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.880 most significant thing someone said to me. And I said, 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:59.640 the problem with this system is the sentencing relative to 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.520 the class C stification of the crime, relative to the 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.559 record of the individual inmate. Because they said, some guys 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.719 come in here and the following thing takes place. They 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.839 come in here and they're sorry, and then three months 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.959 go by and they're really really sorry, and six months 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:20.280 go by and they're really really really sorry, and they're 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.600 ready to get out and they're sorry, and then you 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:24.319 keep them in there another couple of months and they're 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.559 not sorry. Now they're angry. Flip and now they're angry, 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.360 and now they've switched sides. And I'm wondering what your 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:33.160 opinion is. In my opinion is New York Well, the 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:37.600 United States generally incarcerates people longer than any other country. 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:41.760 It's just our culture and it's our system, and it's 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:46.520 we have over lengthy prison absolutely absolutely, I mean for crimes, 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.480 for victims, crimes, and even for crimes with victims. Ever 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.080 since m Richard Nixon and the War on Crime, which 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.280 was really just, uh, I think, a way to capture 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.480 the Southern vote, because he really meant a war on 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:02.679 black people. Ever since Willie Horton, which was just an 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.520 extension of that same thing, no politician has been willing 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:11.680 to reduce criminal sentences. You know, during his tenure, Mario 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.760 Cuomo as governor of New York steadfastly opposed the death penalty, 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.520 as did you carry before him, principal, and to be 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.120 honored for that, but he also during his tenure built 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:26.480 more prison beds in New York State than all the 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:31.559 former governors of New York before him. Yeah, because because 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:37.240 he could not oppose efforts to make sentences and penalties longer, 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:39.880 because of his death penalty stance, he had to protect 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.160 himself by want to be tough on everything else. And 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.200 I think this has been the politics and the media 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.200 have driven it in this country to a terrible extend. 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.560 So for how many years I was a parole officer 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:56.439 for about seven years, and then what happened? Uh then? Actually, well, 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.400 I got a graduate degree, and I moved uh to 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:02.719 upstate New York to teach in the State University of 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.520 New York. I got a teaching appointment as an assistant professor. 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.280 I was bored out of my mind. You went from 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.400 one prison system to another. Yes, so to speak, Although 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.240 an interesting story in that and the time and the 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:17.160 time I was a pro officer, I had arrested people. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.160 I had sent people back to prison for very lengthy 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:21.760 periods of time, guys who had committed murder, guys who 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.480 had committed rape. And nobody ever laid a glove on me. 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.520 It was never a problem. I'd walk up to a guy, said, look, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.640 I gotta take you back. I put the handcuffs on him, 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.000 I put in the car, we take him to jail. 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.320 But while I was teaching, I got embroiled in a 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:36.800 tenure battle with a colleague who one day walked into 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:41.360 my office and cold cocked me. So I always felt 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:47.240 the teaching was somewhat right dangerous teachers precisely, you know, 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.720 And what they fight about in academia is so stranguous 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.040 because what they the issues are so petty. How soon 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.600 after you got cold cocked by the dune six months 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:02.600 I went to Albany to work for the newly appointed 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:08.000 Commissioner of Corrections. This was seventy seven. I went there 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.800 to work as the director of work release programs in 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.720 New York. At that time was really building up its 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.319 investment in halfway houses work release as a way of 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:22.040 reducing the time that people spent inside upstate maximum security prisons. 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.320 What work released then and what was it what is 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.120 it now? Is basically the same. It's been decimated. It's 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:32.240 been decimated. Um reaction. No, actually it saves money. It's 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:38.679 less expensive reaction from who I think from the find crime. Absolutely, 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:43.080 during the last years of the Cuomo administration, I think 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.800 there may have been as many as six thousand inmates 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.760 in New York participating in work release programs. In New York, 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.240 for example, Well, they would literally they would leave the 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:56.880 upstate prisons. They come down to a minimum security facility 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.800 located in New York. There's still one on T Street, 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.559 just off Central Park. And how many people that one 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.760 houses about probably a hundred and fifty people. Yeah, and 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.040 they get assistance finding a job, and once they find 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.920 a job, they're allowed to leave the premises. They leave, 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.600 they go to work, they can do some personal chores, 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:18.439 and then they have to be backed by a certain time, 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.360 and then if they're doing well after a period of time, 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:23.240 on weekends, they're allowed to go home for the weekend 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:28.559 and come back. Under Governor Pataki, they dramatically reduced the program. 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.439 I would say I'd be surprised if today there are 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:32.480 even six d people in work release in New York. 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.400 What do you attributed to Look, this business of corrections 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:40.240 and and releasing people from prison is essentially nothing more 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.880 than a risk management exercise. Right. We can never eliminate risk. 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:45.520 The only way to have no risk is to never 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:47.840 let anybody out of their cell. The many you let 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.240 one guy out of the cell, you're incurring some risk. 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:52.520 So how do you manage that risk? Well, if you 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:57.520 have six thousand guys in halfway houses, some of them 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.840 are going to screw up. How many New York state 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.959 stilities are there today? Roughly, Gee, I don't know off hand. 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:09.720 There are probably forty between forty and fifty several state 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:14.400 prisons of varying sizes. Right, so yes, but I think 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:16.959 the story about New York that that we should feel 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:21.320 good about is that where in n five ninety six, 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.480 New York State had seventy thousand people in prison. And 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.400 mind you, when I started in nineteen sixty nine, there 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.280 were ten thousand people in prison, so there were seventy thousand. 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.160 Today it's down fifty the reform of the Rockfellow drug laws. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:37.600 So it's there's no question in my mind the number 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.000 of people that are in prison is a function of 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.120 policy decisions made by elected officials. Who do you think 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.760 was ultimately responsible for bringing down those laws because a 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.680 lot of people that was just insane. Well, look, I mean, 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:52.960 I think that there was an advocacy the organization dropped 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.160 the rock in New York. I think that then Governor 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.000 Patterson deserves credit. I'm not sure any other governor would 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.400 have accepted that. And then also, I think you cannot 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:07.480 ignore the cost issue. The cost of imprisonment in New 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.160 York State today even is still two billion dollars a 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.440 year in UM. Just about every state in the country, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.280 over the last twenty years, the cost of imprisonment has 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.720 been the fastest growing item in state budgets. In California, 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:25.360 which for years uh I was so proud of its 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.440 public university system reached the point where it was spending 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.880 more on its state prisons, which now hold a hundred 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:34.960 and sixty thou people, than it was on its state universities. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.600 So I think that it was a perfect storm. All 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:42.200 the factors came together. The fiscal conservatives were driven by 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:50.680 the price issues and the country and that's happening is 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:52.800 that it's driven by cost and that it does not 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:58.120 reflect a genuine rethinking of our approach to crime and imprisonment. 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.320 So when you leave the edge vacation job and you 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.720 go work for the Department of Corrections in work release, 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.120 when is the first time as an official of the 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.480 state you walked into a prison in New York State? Oh, 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:12.320 I had walked into prisons as a parole officer. And 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:14.560 so with the first prison you walked, first person I 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.000 ever walked into a singing and describe that the first 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.080 time you walked into Well, it's Dickensian, right, I mean, 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:24.440 it's uh. It was built in eighteen nineteen or thereabouts. 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.640 The prisoners hued the stone off the palisades. The walls 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.840 of the original cell blocks still stand. When I was there, 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:35.920 New York still had a death penalty, and the guy 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.480 who took me around had been there since before the war. 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.360 And two things I remember about him when was he 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.760 said to me, kid, he says, there's nothing new under 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.720 the sun. In corrections, he says, everything we're doing today 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:50.320 was done years ago. We just called something different. And 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.440 he's right. Our approach to imprisonment hadn't changed much. It's 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.760 it's very much a nineteenth century invention. And the other 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:58.600 thing he was he took me to see the death 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:03.600 house where Ethel and Julius Rosenberg had been executed. Horn 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.639 was only five years old when the Rosenbergs were killed, 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.280 but growing up in a Jewish household in the nineteen fifties, 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:14.960 their death nonetheless had a powerful impact. Sixteen years after 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.879 first seeing the death house at sing Sing, Horn was 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.760 executive director of the New York State Division of Parole, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.560 and his opinions had evolved. When I was a parole officer, 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.640 we had an expression trail um, nail him and jellum, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.000 and the idea was that it was up to the 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.239 paroley to do all the work, and if he screwed up, 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:34.960 we would catch him and lock him up. And we 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.000 had this belief that if we locked him up before 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.879 he committed a more serious crime, we were performing a 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:44.760 public service. I had come to the conclusion that parole 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.240 and the prison system generally wasn't doing enough to ease 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.720 the transition for people leaving prison. When an individual comes 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:54.359 out of prison, everybody gets out of prison, and they 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:59.000 have some statistical probability of succeeding or failing. And we 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.919 can improve these odds a little bit if we attend 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.960 to three things. One with sobriety. And I'm not a teetotler, 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.119 I don't make a moral judgment, but sobriety is a 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.520 primary condition. If you don't stay sober, I mean alcoholism 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.040 and drugs, you will fail. You have to have a 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.439 place to live. If you're living on the street, if 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.280 you're living in this in the shelter, you're gonna fail. Today. 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.639 Guys coming out of prison in New York City's housing market, 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.440 they can't afford a place to live, right, I mean 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:29.560 you say, oh, you get a job, Well, people coming 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:33.960 out of Yale can't afford exactly. And the prison system 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:35.639 has also as the rules, you can't have roommates who 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:37.480 are ex offenders, you know, the Yale guy and the 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.360 prisoner maybe should broom together. So I felt that we 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:44.639 needed to help men leaving prison stay sober. We needed 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:46.679 to help them find a place to live, and we 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.040 needed to help them find a job. It's a three 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.879 legged stool if you you know, if you can't stay sober, 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:53.640 you won't hold a job. If you don't have a job, 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.560 you can't pay the rent. And if you lose your 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:58.800 apartment and you're living on the street, you're hanging out 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.320 with guys, you're gonna get owned. So it's it's a 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.639 it's a vicious cycle and one that Horn strive to change. 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.159 Coming up in a minute, Martin Horn talks about serving 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.800 under Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, his return to New York, 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.399 and his ultimate decision to leave public service because I 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.879 felt that I could not trust my workforce any longer. 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.840 This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to. Here's the thing, 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:49.720 this is Alec Baldwin. There were nineteen newly elected governors 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.399 across the country. A new administration often means new staff, 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:58.560 including new corrections directors. Martin Horn took advantage of the moment, 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.800 and so I started making cold call sending letters to 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.359 every newly elected governor. Dear Governor elect, here's my resume. 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.720 Wouldn't you like me to be your corrections director? I 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.440 called a friend in Pennsylvania, actually called the president of 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:16.600 the college I graduated from in Pennsylvania, and he said, gee, 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:18.280 I don't know, but i'll check and you call me back. 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.000 The next day he said, I spoke to the guy 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.640 that lobbies for our college in Harrisburg, and he says, 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:25.600 and here's what they said. They said, the newly elected governor, 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.520 they did not expect to get elected, you know, send 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.840 to me resume, here's the address of the transition office, 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.480 and put a post it note on top that says, 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:35.280 put this on the pile of corrections because they're so 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:39.199 disorganized they've got resumes coming in through the transoms. So 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:43.960 I did exactly that idea, Governor Elect Tom Ridge, let 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:46.160 me introduce myself. I'd like to be your corrections director. 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:48.160 Here's what I've done. Here's what I and I put 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.080 a post it note on it that says put it 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.679 on the pile for corrections. And two weeks later, his 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:58.119 deputy chief of staff called, how long were you in 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.399 Pennsylvania with Ridge? Well, I was in pennsyl manu with 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.800 Ridge for seven years. I was Commissioner of Correction for 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.840 six and then at the end of the sixth year, 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:11.120 he appointed me to be Secretary of Administration, which took 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:12.879 me out of the correction department and put me in 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:19.800 charge of labor relations. And I t if you stayed 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:21.880 there for seven years, did you develop a good relationship 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:24.720 with Ridge? I think the world of Tom Ridge. I 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:26.680 really think the world of Tom Ridge. Well, how would 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.760 you to the extent you can characterize the six years 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.520 you ran the system? And they were but for the 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:36.359 fact that I was in Harrisford, Pennsylvania, they were the 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.520 greatest six years of my professional career. Truth, Oh yeah, 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:41.080 I had. I had the best boss you could have. 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:43.200 He knew how to be a leader, and he knew 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:44.639 how to back up his people, and he knew how 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.760 to hold people accountable. And he was the world's best listener, 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.159