 I'm Kathy Leiden Conway. I am a member of the Vision 2020 Diversity Task Group. We are the major sponsors of this evening's panel discussion. And we welcome all of you here. This evening's discussion is about unequal justice. The panel is going to be talking about race and class in our criminal justice system. And that's our criminal justice system, all of ours. Before we get started, I want to make sure that you know where the restrooms are. The men's and the latest room back here, and you have to go out the exit and then up a couple of stairs, men's on the other side. Those of us who have name tags on are volunteers with a number of the different cosponsor organizations. So if you have any questions, the volunteers can help you. Our program is going to be a moderated panel. After the speakers all do their speaking and they are cross referencing and discussing with each other. There will be an opportunity to have questions from the floor. So if you're thinking of a question as it goes along, you might pay attention to that and have your questions ready. But there will be plenty of time for questions from the floor. We should be ending promptly at nine o'clock. At which time there will be books, references, information, a lot of really good information for you on the rolling board that's over here. On a resource table in the back and books over on my left. In your program booklet for this evening, on the front is the name of the panelist and all of our cosponsors. On the back is the biographies of all of our panelists. In the inside is an amazing amount of information and resources that's available to you. So make sure you keep your program because you may want to refer to it at some other time. Because this is a collaborative effort, I would like to mention that we have 24 cosponsors of tonight's event. I think that's a pretty amazing thing. I would like to quickly read off those cosponsors. They are also listed on a list on the rolling board and up back. If anyone is here representing some of our cosponsors, if when I mention them, if you would like to stand, feel free to do so. All of them are from Arlington, unless I note otherwise. So I'm going to quickly read the names of our cosponsors. The Arlington Baha'i community, the board of selectmen, our Human Rights Commission, the International Film Festival, and public schools. Calvary Church Methodist, United Methodist, excuse me. The Center for Jewish Life from Arlington and Belmont. Church of our Savior, Dreekung Meditation Center, the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, the High Rock Covenant Church, League of Women Voters, Mankind Project of New England, the Martin Luther King Birthday Observance Committee, the Mystic Valley branch of the NAACP, Park Ave Congregational United Church of Christ, the Robbins Library, St. Agnes Parish, St. Athanasius the Great Greek Orthodox Church, St. Eulalius Parish, St. John's Episcopal Church, St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Temple Amunia in Lexington, and Trinity Baptist Church. So all of these organizations are working with us in a coalition of building a grassroots community around these issues. So I'd like to again say thank you. I hope you've been enjoying the food that's in the back. Feel free to get more of it as the evening goes on. Many of our sponsors donated the food also, but we also got food from Food Link, Cabrata, Stop and Shop and Whole Foods, so thank you to them also. One change to tonight's program. Peniel Joseph from Tufts University was supposed to be with us. We found out this afternoon that he is under the weather, so he sends his regrets, but we have, instead of Peniel, we have our own Bonnie by Chai Williamson, who has joined the panel in Peniel's place. So we're thrilled to have Bonnie with us. Bonnie is an interim dean of students at Northern Essex Community College. To Bonnie's right is our police chief, Fred Ryan, and to Fred's right is Frank Rudy Cooper, who is a professor of law at Suffolk Law, and on the other side to Bonnie's left is Don Perry, and Don is a parolee and an activist working to change the criminal justice system from within. So these, I'd like you to welcome all of our panelists. Moderating for us tonight is, again, our Ellington's own, David Whitford. David is a journalist and writer, and he is currently editor at Lodge for Ink Magazine. He also moderates a number of our community conversations. So if you could welcome David. Thank you, Cathy. I want to thank the Diversity Task Group for inviting me to moderate tonight. It's an honor to be here and a privilege, and I'm very happy to be doing this. I also want to thank all our panelists for being here tonight. Thank you for honoring us with your presence and for participating in this important community conversation. We're very grateful to have all of you here to see me. Thank you. And I want to thank all of you. It's such a wonderful thing to look out and see so many people in the crowd on a very cold Saturday night. And you're out here tonight to eat some vegetables, not dessert. It speaks highly of our community. I think that we can attract such a big crowd and talk about such an important set of issues. There are three things I just want to note before we begin talking. Number one, two days ago was the third anniversary of the death of Trayvon Martin. That was not a police event, and therefore perhaps not directly related to our main topic of conversation tonight. But I think it was clearly related to a chain of events and to a set of circumstances that brings us all here together tonight to talk about these issues. I just wanted to take note of that anniversary. I want to mention too that the focus in conversations about race is often on the inherent conflict, the us versus them. And I think we have an opportunity tonight to engage in a way that goes beyond simple conflict. And I hope we can all keep in mind how powerful it can be to talk about change together across race and class lines and to consider how together we can make things better. And finally, I wanted to make reference to President Obama's speech on the evening of Monday, November 24th when the St. Louis County grand jury in St. Louis County failed to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown. He quoted Michael Brown's father, and this is Michael Brown's father speaking. Hurting others or destroying property is not the answer. No matter what the grand jury decides, I do not want my son's death to be in vain. I want it to lead to incredible change and positive change. I wanted to mention that because I think we owe a debt of gratitude to Michael Brown and his family for the sacrifice that they made that led in part to us having this conversation here tonight. All right, so let's begin. I'm sorry I have a cold. Who doesn't have a cold? May I ask the panelists and let me start with you, Frank? I'm curious, I mentioned the evening of Monday, November 24th. And again, that was when the grand jury in St. Louis refused to return an indictment for police officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown. I'm curious, what was your personal reaction when you heard that news? So, I have to say three reactions. The first was a lack of surprise. Honestly, I didn't expect an indictment. Can you hear me? Okay. My first reaction was a lack of surprise. This, as somebody who studies policing and racial profiling and to a lesser degree some of the outcomes of civil rights suits against police for misconduct. It came as no surprise to me that there was no indictment in the case. And then I sort of felt a sense of exhaustion that in the context, as David has said, of Trayvon Martin and many, many, many other people being killed in ways that were very similar to or less similar to the way that Michael Brown was killed. I just felt maybe this is it. Maybe this is just the way it's going to be for the next decade or more. But then when I saw the reaction, particularly the types of reactions like the Black Lives Matter campaign, I started to feel some rekindled hope. Thank you. Thank you. Chief Ryan, I just want to mention that I asked Chief Ryan before we began how he preferred to be addressed and to his credit, he wants this to be an informal conversation here. So strange as it feels, I'm going to call you Fred. Please do. I'm going to call works. So what was your response to that news, Fred? Like the professor, I wasn't surprised. We have an imperfect criminal justice system. I'm not sure if my microphone is activated. No green light. Can you hear me now? My apologies. Well, like the professor, I too was not surprised. We have an imperfect criminal justice system. Our police officers and prosecutors go to court day in and day out with what we think are good cases with good evidence to get turned around and result in a not guilty or a no bill non indictment. So the fact that that happens in cases where police brutality is alleged, I too was not surprised. That said, I think that the fact that communities such as Arlington, and you know, this is amazing here on a Saturday night, that this is so important that we address the elephant in the room and have a good conversation about how we move forward and police race relations. There's no question. The police have been flawed historically at building trusting relationships in minority communities and with people of color. We've worked hard in Arlington to build those trusting relationships. The police department is only as good as a trusted community in places in the police department. And so, again, not surprised, but my surprise was, my lack of surprise was different than that of the professor in that I see people day in and day out who the evidence is abundantly clear they're guilty, get found not guilty. It's an imperfect system that gives a benefit of the doubt to the defendant. And police officers are entitled to those same rights that non-police officers are entitled to. Thank you. Bonnie. So, yeah, I think it was the same sort of response, you know, just feeling not feeling surprised and just feeling extremely depressed. That not again, you know, once again. And, but I think out of the depression there was also this sense that, you know, enough is enough. We really have to try to do whatever we can to get our voices heard. And I think as we saw the responses coming out, the whole point that struck, and here I'm speaking for the Diversity Task Group, that struck us was that, you know what, we do need to have our voices heard. We do need to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters of color. And so we did have a Black Lives Matter, you know, vigil, which I think many of you came to. And it was in, you know, and we worked with the Arlington Police Department. And so I think that's what we're trying to do, is work together to try to bring this information out there. We are in the information age. All the information is available on the internet and in library books. People just need to go out and check them or Google them. And there's tons of information about this. And so we hope that, you know, we hope that people will get more information and then get mobilized and try to bring about change. All right, thank you. Don. I was surprised, but not so much surprised. I mean, and I think it was a very unfortunate tragedy. But to every disadvantage, there's an advantage. And out of the recent incidents, one of the things that we've had to our advantage is social media, where there's a lot of more transparency. And that's what I'm grateful for. There are a lot of these incidents. They're not just isolated, but they are being made public. And so we can have an opportunity to really look at them and address them. Thank you, Don. Actually, what you've done there is gone ahead and I think it's a great opportunity to address it. Thank you, Don. Actually, what you've done there has gone ahead and begun to answer what my next question was going to be to all four of the panelists. And that was, why do you think that this event in Ferguson had such a catalytic effect on American society, led to demonstrations, led to community gatherings like ours? Surely what happened there was not a unique event. And I think we'll end up talking about other events like this and the history of these events and the sort of context for these events. So why did what happened in Ferguson, why was it different? Why was the impact different? I invite any of you who have thoughts on that to respond. Well, I think the relationship between Ferguson's police department and the community was completely broken. The police force didn't represent the demographic makeup of the community. There was no community policing. You know, I asked you to call me Fred tonight because I think I know everybody in this room on a first name basis. And it's so incredibly important for a community's police department to be a part of the community to welcome accountability, to welcome criticism and constructive feedback, and to work with the community toward the collective public safety goal. And it appears, and I only know from what I've seen in the media, you know, but clearly there was a disconnect between the community and its police department in Ferguson. And may I just add, but I don't think this just happened in Ferguson. As a matter of fact, I've had the privilege of being a part of an eight-part justice documentary called The System by Joe Brollinger of Al Jazeera America. And one of the things, one of the issues of being addressed is so the system in and of itself is made to enforce laws and hold people accountable. But the bottom line is who's watching the system. And in this eight-part justice documentary, it deals with every component of the criminal justice system. From false arrests to the first episode is about false arrests, the ending episode is about prosecutorial misconduct. And each episode features two cases, one from around this country. So in that it emphasizes just how much accountability, transparency and accountability that needs to be made in the system. It indicates just how much, how many flaws or dysfunctional our criminal justice system has become. And we as citizens, we need to, instead of just living in a bubble, we need to start to pay attention and realizing just what's going on in our own community, never mind, in the other areas of the nation. Frank, do you have something to add? Just one quick comment, which is I think that activists were really important in Ferguson as well. When I try and think about why did this happen, there was an insistence that this would be recognized and it was built up to that moment that people were expecting something to be done or there to be a reaction. People may have been watching to see if there was going to be an explosion, but there was also, I think, a sense that people expected something to be done or there would be some kind of recriminations for the police department. Great. And I think one of the things that, I can't remember the exact numbers right now, but one of the things about Ferguson was that the percentage of arrest warrants that were out for a population, you know, I'll just randomly, you can check it out, but it's something like, let's say, if there were 43,000 citizens of color there, you know, there were like 23,000 arrest warrants out there and the question becomes really, do we really believe that three fourths of that population is criminally inclined or, you know, so it's a question of how punitive is the system, how much are, how much of the broken windows theory is being implemented there, you know, how much stop and frisking is happening, so all these issues come out. So it was very disproportionate and I think that's one of the reasons why the relationship was broken, as Fred was pointing out. So, and I think once that movement happened and that it got picked up by the media, it spread through the nation and suddenly people started realizing, really, there's something wrong about this. You know, they suddenly are sort of slapped in the face. They couldn't look away anymore and I think that's what sort of, you know, injustice is injustice and I think that suddenly touched the vein. But to put some local context into it, last calendar year over 1200 firearms were seized from the streets in Metropolitan Boston. Not one person was shot in those 1200 seizures. Massachusetts and Metropolitan Boston and the training of its police officers and the implementation of community policing is very different than Missouri. Thanks for adding that and I do want to get into that in more detail a little bit later in our conversation but I wanted to step back for a second here and ask Frank if you can give us some context about the state of incarceration in America, the state of law enforcement, how it relates to race in class. I think we all have a pretty good sense now that the criminal justice system nationally is an unequal system but if you could help us understand that with some academic perspective that would be very helpful to us. Great, thank you David. So the state of America with respect to incarceration is a state of hyper-incarceration and I mean that in the sense that we are hyper about it, we do a lot of it but I also want to emphasize that it's targeted, it's very targeted. The United States incarcerates racially a very disparate portion of racial minorities so specifically with respect to black men and also with respect to Latino men there is a ratio of and I'm going to look at a statistic here so let me just see if I can get this close to right. Roughly speaking, Latinos who are maybe 18% of the population as compared to about 60% for whites are about two and a half times as incarcerated as whites are and then when you look at blacks blacks are about two times as incarcerated as Latinos which means about five times as incarcerated as whites blacks are roughly 12% of the population so the disparities are there. Now we'll have to have a conversation about why exactly that is so but I don't think we can talk about incarceration in the United States without saying that the United States incarcerates vastly more than any other western country or even non-western countries that we might think aren't as civilized as we are when it comes to criminal justice and so the system is broken in terms of the amount of incarceration that we do. That could lead to a conversation about whether we over criminalize but then the second thing I think to talk about it was already mentioned by Bonnie is the stop and frisk and the sort of street level encounters that police officers have with civilians and the stop and the frisk is basically the idea and Fred can talk more about this that a police officer can with reasonable suspicion stop you, make you halt and then if they have reason to believe that you might be armed they can frisk you which means to pat down the outside of your clothing but the case that said that police officers can do this talks about feeling sensitively around the groin is part of a frisk and so it is considered a minor intrusion under the Fourth Amendment but in fact it's quite an indignity. So those stops and fris in the recent case of New York, Floyd versus New York City, sorry, City of New York it was found that in New York City again with whites now only 33% of the population and Latinos and blacks at less than that whites were 10% of those stopped. African Americans roughly 24% of the population were 50% of those stopped and about 30% of those stopped were Latinos who were about 27% of the population perhaps. So at the sort of level of incarceration there are disparities and then at the level of street encounters there are disparities in terms of who is targeted just to be suspect. So I don't know if you had other thoughts that you wanted to get out about that. Well, somebody help me who's the former chief of police in New York City? Bratton. Ray Kelly? Ray Kelly, yeah. Ray Kelly became closely associated with this practice of stop and frisk that the numbers were off the charts under his tenure as chief of police. Now you mentioned we could have a conversation about why these numbers are disproportionate. Ray Kelly's explanation is, look, violent crime generally happens among members of the same community. The perp and the victim are often members of the same community and that in poor neighborhoods of New York City in predominantly black neighborhoods of New York City you have a disproportionate number of victims and so it makes sense that we have a disproportionate number of stops. That's what Ray Kelly would argue. Do either of you have any thoughts on that? I'll defer to you and I have some thoughts. You know, I have a friend who's a chief out in the walkie and we've had some conversations about this and he follows a Ray Kelly model. 80% of his homicides are black on black and so he says who are we going to be focusing on to reduce our homicides? Black males. You know, I think sometimes that's a little too simplistic of an approach and here's why. A lot of police actions are based on calls for service. You know, I'll give you an example. I was reading a report this morning. A restaurant here in Allington Center called the police last night over a woman of color who was coming in and sitting at the bar and using the Wi-Fi for free and not purchasing any food or beverages. And now, so our call takers are trained. We know that people that call the police have biases. They're human beings. So, you know, people aren't suspicious that behaviors are and the dispatcher asked, you know, what exactly is the person doing that's suspicious that should rise to the level where there should be some police intervention? And so the business owner said trespassing. This person's trespassing. I've asked her not to come here. She continues to come here. We want some police intervention. So we dispatch an officer and the woman had left the restaurant. The officer approached the woman. And of course, the woman felt that she was being targeted because she was a person of color. And so we employ what's known as a procedural justice. It's a fancy term for people just want to know, they want to be treated fairly. They want to know why a police officer took the action they did. They want to be given the opportunity to ask questions around what the officer did and to have an effective, what we call disengagement. And so in this instance, the officer explained and the woman was satisfied with the explanation and it turned out to be just fine. But my point is, is the overwhelming majority of police actions are call generated. And so if we've got people calling the police and furthering their own biases, we have to be more sophisticated in their response. And I guess my response to Commissioner Kelly, sorry, take your applause. My response to Commissioner Kelly, not to Fred Ryan would just be that actually across the nation about 5% of arrests are for violent acts and about 8% are for property crimes. So everything else is something else. It could be that somebody is suspected of having marijuana. And in terms of incarceration statistics, the people that are put in jail, particularly under Commissioner Kelly, are low-level drug offenders. And that's why I say, well, maybe we have to think about whether it makes sense to incarcerate more than anybody else in the world based on low-level drug offenses. And most importantly, and I always have to say this, rates of drug use are equal across races. So it makes no sense that blacks are being brought in at five times the rate for drug crimes that whites are. Don, could I ask you now, while we're on this topic, if you wouldn't mind talking to us about your sense of your relationship as a young man growing up. I don't know where you grew up, but your sense of your relationship with law enforcement as a young man and whether or not that relationship with law enforcement, what was the nature of that relationship? Were cops your friends? Were there people to be avoided? And how has that relationship changed as you've gotten older? Well, first of all, I have to ask you a question. I was born in North Carolina. In North Carolina? I was born in North Carolina. Yeah. Louisburg, North Carolina. I spent most of my earlier teen years traveling from Massachusetts, New York to North Carolina. We have no decision about what type of situation that we're born into. And unfortunately, I was born into a very dysfunctional family. And just like Frank mentioned earlier, he talked about the statistics of young black males being incarcerated. The general consistency is that one in every three black males will wind up in the criminal justice system. I am number one. And I remember at an early age, reading the African-American encyclopedia and coming across these statistics, I was like, I was blown away. Like, wow, I was destined for this. And I mean, it just blew my mind. Why couldn't I have the same opportunities than anyone else? But the bottom line is to get back to your question, Dave. Early on in my community, the black community, now we have to realize something. In April, I'll be 61 years old. So we're talking 40, 45 years ago, things were like totally different. I mean, we're just coming into areas where, you know, that there was no, I mean, I've seen segregation. I've been to all black schools in the south. I've seen Ku Klux Klan lynchings. So when we talk about the police force, then the police force was to be feared. And readily suspected of not being treated fairly. So I grew up with that kind of like angst towards police officers. Naturally so. As I got older, experienced life more, got an education, bottom line. I think one of the themes of the questions was, as far as this panel is like about how there's a law, but then there's the application of the law. Do I think as a society that we need the law, as a society do we need policing? Yes. But I think as Fred mentioned earlier, it's about treating people fairly, having transparency. And my overall experience has been based on the color of my skin when it comes to the criminal justice system and any type of interaction with police, nine times out of 10, I'm going to get, and anyone who has any type of history like mine is going to get the short end of this stick. And that's just the way it goes. We talk about people having those personal biases. I mean, just for someone to see that I have an arrest record. And I haven't committed a crime in over 30 years, but people feel like that they can just look at my record, they can give me their own form of justice for what was stuff that happened 30 years ago. And that's what, to me, that's the invisible violence. And one of the things that, talking about community-wise, we have to, and the criminal justice system, is that caste system. Because no matter what I do, I'm always, when they pull my record, I'm always that 28-year-old that committed a robbery, was drug crazed and wind up in Walpole State Prison for 18 years and seven months. It has not, it does not mention anything about what I have accomplished since my release. I've graduated college, I've created programs, I did all that. But when you, when they pull my record, W39865, that's what I have to say about it. Frank, as a black man of a different generation, has your relationship with law enforcement, how you interact, how you feel you're perceived, has that changed during your lifetime? Absolutely, so I'm 46 and I graduated, I'm 46, I graduated from high school in 1986, and in 1986 I would say that I feared the police, that I didn't, I guess I saw them as political enemies. I wasn't involved in what gets thought of as major crimes, so I drank underage. That won't surprise a lot of people. Right, that won't surprise a lot of people. We didn't drink together though. But when I was younger, I always thought I would be picked out as the person who they would say, aha, we see you drinking underage and that I would be brought into the system. And I knew that my white friends didn't fear that in one particular case, they almost got me in trouble because they felt very safe to drink in front of the police, and I did not. As I got older, I graduated out of that. There's definitely in my mind a sense that you get beyond about 30 or so and people don't see you as the threat that you were when you were younger. That was my experience, and as Don points out, I did grow up sort of post-integration and in Cambridge, so not exactly the hardest place to grow up. Bonnie, if we could talk about the school system a little bit. Now you're, as a professional, you are a dean at a community college and I believe that you're involved partly in discipline, right? It's one of your functions. I know that you and I have talked a little bit about what you refer to as the school... School to prison. School to prison pipeline, yes. And I'm curious about your sense of how how justice is unequally enforced in the context where you were professionally. So, yeah, and I think that's, you know, anything that I'm going to say now, of course, I have to say that as a dean of students and currently, as well as in my past experience, I was a dean of students also at a college where it was primarily first-generation students of color and at Northern Essex it is a Hispanic-serving institution so it is, again, mostly students of color. And I think one of the things that, you know, as I talk about the school to prison pipeline, I think as the chief conduct officer at my college, I do understand the challenges and pain that school officials and school administrators face when they deal with students who are challenging, you know, who are breaking the law, who are disruptive, et cetera. So I know that have I had to expel and suspend some students in the past? Yes. And those were all very painful and difficult decisions. So I do understand that, but I think what we're talking about is that there are situations that, for example, which are, you know, which are, you could say that, okay, they might be at a point where you do need to take a really stern disciplinary measure. So, you know, weapons, bringing weapons into schools or things like that, which are what we call objective offenses, which are, you can see them on your drug possession in schools. Those are very clear offenses. It's not like, oh, yes, you know, it's not a subjective thing. It's not based on your opinion. The kid has a weapon or doesn't have a weapon. He's possessing drugs or he isn't possessing drugs. So those are a little more clear cut. And when it comes to white students, when we look at suspension rates, so basically suspension rates for black students is three times in the school system, and this I'm talking about K through 12, is three times that of a white student. The other groups that are, you know, so students of color, especially boys of color, are at greater risk. The other groups are, of course, students with disabilities, you know, and then the LGBT students. So I think the students with disabilities, again, my statistics, I don't have them in front of me, but I think it's at about 1.5, okay, and then black students are three times that of a white student. And this, there has been research done, because the question comes up, then are students of color committing crimes that are much more serious? But there has been research done, and what is happening is that for the same kind of offenses, students of color are the sanctions put out against them are much more punitive. And so what happens is that for white students, they are often, their suspensions are usually tied to objective offenses. So that is, again, as I was saying, possessing a weapon or something which is very clear-cut. For students of color, it's typically, for most of the time, this is for what we call subjective offenses, which is things like, you know, somebody's being disruptive in class or somebody's talking back to the teacher or being disrespectful, you know, or for using profane language, things like that. So things which maybe 20, 30 years ago would just, you know, you'd be sent to the principal's office and get a very stern talking to, now are resulting in out-of-school suspensions. And out-of-school suspensions have the number one predictor much more than poverty of whether a student is going to end up in the, having some interaction with the juvenile justice system. So what happens is that, especially once you're in middle and high school, once a student goes into out-of-school suspension, you know, for example, like let's take, you know, I'll just take for example, if it's my kid, right? If he gets an out-of-school suspension, he has two parents with PhDs, okay, with terminal degrees. What are we going to do? We're going to contact the teachers. We're going to get the homework. We're going to figure out what he's best. We're going to spend a ton of time making sure that he's up to speed so that when he goes back to school, he's up to speed. But what's happening with families where, you know, the children, the parents aren't at that level of education. And what happens is that once a student misses school, when he goes back, he's missed class hours. He's missed the learning. Now he goes back and he can't keep up. You know, he was already struggling before, so now he can't keep up. That leads to him repeating a grade that finally leads to him dropping out, and finally he's now in the juvenile justice system. So that's one way out-of-school suspension's work. The other is, of course, which is, you know, luckily we don't have it in our school systems, school systems, but in many other states, like, for example, if you take California, what's known as school resource offices, which is basically police offices in the schools. Once you have police officers in the school, if the tool is there, there is an immediate tendency to use it. So once you have it, there are students who are, you know, these are minor subjective offenses who are getting tickets from the police officers, from the school resource officers, and ending up in the juvenile justice system. In fact, you know, I think it was last day in Clayton County, Georgia, the prosecutors were so overwhelmed with these minor offenses that are leading to, you know, cases in court, dealing with them that finally they had to come up with a system where the school resource officers would be restricted in what they could arrest for. Colorado has passed a law restricting that for what kind of offenses students can be arrested. You know, so this is what happens, is that this out-of-school suspension is really problematic. And in fact, I think it was the U.S. Department of Education said that 95% of out-of-school suspensions are for subjective offenses. Only 1.3% are for things like, you know, possessing an explosive device or a weapon. So, like, there's a student who was suspended because he chewed his pop dart into the shape of a gun, you know, which was, I think, in 2013. I mean, that's when you think, like, what is going on? You know, there's a lack of common sense here. Also, with the school-to-prison pipeline, once these students are in the system, you know, you're losing men. And a lot of these students are already without parents. They're already without fathers. They're coming from a community where it's already broken. So we are just perpetuating this. The National Education Association last year did take a resolution that they would try to stop this. You know, they would try to work towards this. And there's a lot of work being done in trying to figure out how school discipline can be changed. I think I'll stop now, and, you know, if you come back to the topic, we'll talk about it. Yeah, thank you, Bonnie. Fred, I should know this. Having had two children go through the Arlington Public Schools, but I don't know the answer to this. Are your officers present in the school system on a routine basis? Yes, in fact, the officer that started our school resource officer program, Brian Gallagher, is in the back of the room. And again, to put some local context, and Bonnie and I have a great respect for one another, but I'm going to disagree with Bonnie a little bit here. In Arlington, our criminal complaint and arrest on school properties went down as a result of the school resource officer program, because when we implemented the program, we also implemented alternatives to the traditional criminal justice program. We started a juvenile diversion program, which were mostly minor offenses and involved incidents that didn't have a victim involved. Small amounts of drugs, minor disturbances and things of that nature. And rather than seek a criminal complaint and give the child, as Dawn was mentioning, sort of that scarlet letter of having a criminal complaint on their record for the rest of their lives, we diverted them and put them into a setting where they had to get, you know, assuming it involved drugs or alcohol. They had to be a substance abuse assessment, some community service, some therapy, whatever the contract was structured on a case-by-case basis. But the point is, the child wasn't put in a juvenile court. The child was put into an alternative setting and still is targeted at the child succeeding. And Superintendent Bode, who I think is here tonight, fully supports that program and helps us fund it. In crimes or offenses that involve a victim, we partnered with the Communities for Restorative Justice. I'm not sure those in the room are familiar with the concepts of restorative justice. But very quickly, in the traditional criminal justice setting, it's, you know, who done it? Who's the bad guy? And what's the penalty? Under restorative justice, the question is, you know, was there some harm? Who caused the harm? And how do we repair the harm? And for those of you who have never sat in a restorative justice circle or are not familiar with the restorative justice concepts, I strongly urge you to look into it, because it's incredible what can occur in the restorative justice setting. In a neighboring town, a kid who put all the windows at the Five and Dime, a felony, rather than put them into a juvenile court, they put them in a restorative circle with the victim present with the perpetrator. The victim was furious. He said, mom and pop shop, you put me out of business for the day. At the opening circle, it was hostile. They structured the contract, implemented the contract over three months. At the end of the three months, the guy that owned the Five and Dime hired the kid to work summers while he was in college. The kid does not have a felony record, graduated college is doing well. That's what we need to be doing. And that's what we're doing in Arlington thanks to Superintendent Bode and others. Don, before we get any farther, I'd like to give you an opportunity to tell us your story. You hinted at some aspects of it. It sounds like, I don't know if I was imagining this, but watching you listen to Fred about that encounter with the criminal justice system, it seemed to me that you would have preferred that kind of encounter earlier in your life. Totally. Tell us your story. Totally. I mean, and I mentioned to Fred earlier that I had heard another panel that I did. I had heard him speaking on another panel and I'm really impressed about what's going on in Arlington, especially under his watch. But, so yeah, early on, if I'd have had that type of intervention to actually give me a chance to get on track to turn my life around, I'm sure things would have worked out differently. Because the powers that be, I was taking down a different road. And the bottom line is, so in 1983, well, first of all, at 14 years old, I saw my father shoot my mother with a double barrel shotgun while she was nine months pregnant. No one has ever had a conversation with me about that other than me and my therapist. But the bottom line is it had a serious impact. And this was like, this was after a long, up until that 14 years, my father used to beat me down on a regular basis. And after that incident, I vowed, we left from North Carolina, came back to Massachusetts, and I vowed like, no one would ever put their hands on me or no one would ever tell me what to do again. So I am one of seven children that my mother and my father had. I took to the street at an early age. When we came back to Massachusetts, I immediately hit the street. 15 years old, I tried heroin for the first time. 15 and a half, I had my first heroin habit. My years of experimenting with drugs naturally led me to engage in various forms of criminal activity. 1983, I was involved with some people that we committed several robberies. One of the persons they really want, they want it back. I wouldn't cooperate with the district attorney. So for my taking responsibility for myself, June, excuse me, July 1983, I went into court. I pled guilty, taking responsibility for my action for the robberies that I committed. And they was trying to force me to cooperate and testify on another individual, and I wouldn't do that. Out of the charges, they allegedly said that one fell through the crack. November 1983, a week before this individual came to trial, they said I need to bring me back into court just for this one case. I was supposed to get a four to six year, I was all in July, I was given 9, 25 to 40s, 18 to 20s, an array of different other sentences. They said it was just one case that fell through the crack. The only thing they wanted to dispose of it, have me come back into court and it was going to give me a four to six year current sentence. But instead when I went into court, the district attorney, ex-district attorney, Francis Bloom, of Hamden County, he stood up with a legal pad and started reading off information that was incriminating to the individual that he wanted my corroboration on. If I didn't challenge that, or if my lawyer didn't challenge that, it went into the record as being fact. So they could use that information to convict the person that they wanted me to testify against all alone. I objected to that. As a result of that objection, I come out of that plea hearing where I was supposed to get a four to six year sentence with a second degree life sentence. The maximum penalty for armed robbery. And what did that mean in terms of that they set out a parole schedule for you? So what that essentially means is that I'm on parole for the rest of my life at this point because I wouldn't cooperate. And this is what we're talking about, I mentioned earlier about the invisible violence. But even after serving 18 years, well, when I went into prison, the first nine years I did just about whatever I wanted to do, regardless of the institutional rules of good conduct. I sold drugs. I smoked marijuana every day. I got in a couple of fights. But nine years down the road, I got transferred from Gardner, NCCI Gardner facility to Old Colony in Bridgewater behind a drug incident. I was transferred because I was labeled a leader of a drug ring. At 7 o'clock one morning, one winter morning I found myself in the back of an unheated van with about 20 degrees in my boxers headed to Bridgewater. But when I got to Bridgewater, it had just opened and they had one of the best rehabilitative systems that I've ever seen. Education, therapy, vocation, all of it. Maybe it was the timing of it. Maybe it's my level of maturity but I dialed right into it. I had some prior college experience prior to being incarcerated. But I realized I wanted to establish a firm academic foundation. So I started on a pre-college level. I was there for like four or five years and I left there and went to Shirley Medium where I enrolled at UMass Amherst Continuing Education Program. And in the course of that, I got involved with individual counseling, took advantage of almost every rehabilitative opportunity that was presented to me. 18 years and seven months later. Well, first of all, it was 16 years. I went before the parole board 16 years. And they didn't want to hear the, initially they didn't want to hear the model inmate. They thought I was scamming. So I got a two-year setback to see if anything would happen. If I would change my attitude or anything. 18 years and seven months I got out. I went into a residential program but based on my rehabilitative accomplishment, they made me do a crash course of learning everything about the residential program because they made me staff and staff office manager. And this is a program I was overseeing like 18 and 24 men in the residential program. They had a satellite women's program. And I had to get people up 5.30 in the morning to sweep the entire streets of Northampton. And after I completed the program, they say that they would allow me to, that they would bring me on a staff. Other programs wanted me too, based on the thing because in the course of learning program, I'm an advocate of higher education, all of the rehabilitative measures that people need, academically, vocational, and psychosocial. So I implemented all these in these programs and other people took notice of that and appreciate that. So they said once you complete your six months stint in this program, we're going to hire staff. Harrison, I was wanting, but what? I have a quarry. So based on their funding at that time and we've heard all about the different issues of quarry reform that's just happened over the years. So I couldn't get a job working in human service, but guess what? I got a job in a gun factory. And so I got out in January 2000, completed the program in July. It had been my dream. I remember, I'll tell you, I'm from rural Loisburg, North Carolina. I had an eighth grade teacher tell me I would never graduate from college. I enrolled at UMass Amherst 2000, September 2000, seven, eight months after I got out of prison. I had to do, I had basically did all of my genesis stuff while incarcerated. I needed 15 new loan credits to March and May. February had an accident at the gun factory. I lost my left ring finger, but nothing on this planet was going to determine from wearing that cap and gown. So today I had to report to UMass to pick up my cap and gown and my invitations. I went to, I'm sure some people in this room are familiar with UMass campus. I went over by the W. B. Du Bois Library, by the duck pond, sat by myself and cried like a baby. Because this is what I had accomplished. Everything that I have done since my initial release from prison has been about greater exploring and defining my own humanity, including helping to create other programs and advocate for people that was also challenged. After I left the gun factory, I worked in shelters. From the shelters I went to, I'm one of the first persons in Massachusetts from the shelters I was offered a job and I told the person that I had a quarry. So listen, you go apply for the job and we'll see what happens. I went to three interviews. I was hired for the job. Two weeks later, the same person came in and escorted me off the facility because I had a quarry. But I told him, I said, listen, if I have the experience. Don, you want to just explain to all of us here about the quarry, what criminal record of offending information. So what it really means is anybody has ever been arrested in a reign in a court of law. It's that scholar letter I spoke of earlier. Exactly. And this is why it's so important, like Fred said, about keeping that off people's record. Because no matter what, all they got to do is punch in your information and it comes up. And so the person that escorted me off, I went that Monday morning to the main office and told him that I wanted to, I was formally requesting for a quarry appeal. I was one of the first persons in Massachusetts to actually have a quarry appeal process through the criminal history system board. Eight months later, I got a phone call and I was offered the same job. I worked there for one year and left there and I started the Single Room Occupancy Outreach Program, which you probably can refer to as transitional housing. People live in efficiencies, all this kind of stuff. This is the forgotten population. People oftentimes think because someone has housing that they're fine, but they're not. They need intervention. I mean, 60 to 80 percent of their income goes to, their unfixed income. 60 to 80 percent of their income goes towards housing. So they need food. I had a food pantry. And this was in Northampton. In addition to this program, I took over the soup kitchen in Amherst, not bread alone soup kitchen. We fed three hot meals a day. We're not talking about a soup kitchen where if someone comes through a line and you dole out food. This was restaurant setting, family setting with plates and mats on tables. And so this is the way that I contributed to my community. But as a result of doing this, I'm doing outreach. As a matter of fact, I had before engaging in any of all this, I had to contact the Massachusetts Parole Board and get their permission to do any of this because I'm dealing with the unpredictable population of people. August 3rd, 2011, I was on my way to a board of directors meeting. I picked up an individual hitchhiker. He was on his way to a dropping center where they go and have breakfast and shower in the morning and stuff. And we see him all the time. People have all of their belongings on them. It's not my business what this guy had. I'm just giving him a ride. Anybody that deals in outreach know that the objective is to meet an individual where he or she is. And a meeting him was simply about giving him a ride, maybe later on I could have more conversation with him to figure out how I can help advocate for him. Bottom line, I didn't know that he was also being pursued by the police. He had stolen items and whatever else. To this day, I don't all know what he had. But when I was coming into Northampton, I guess earlier we noticed a police presence. Take the exit to Northampton, he bailed out of my truck. I have to go through the light, I get pulled over. In the process, they found stolen stuff in my truck. And immediately after my plates and everything is ran, I'm a black man, like Massage Paroli and it just took a whole different meaning. Initially, the district attorney was even baffled about what he could try to charge me with. Took him eight months to figure out what we were just going to charge him with receiving stolen property because if it was in his vehicle, you can infer that it was his or he knew about it. I went to trial, first of all, I had witnesses to prove that I was at home when this incident happened. Forensic evidence, foot prints and fingerprints and everybody know mine. Proved that I wasn't there. And I had a four day trial, the jury was out in less than two hours and I was acquitted. But instead of going home or returning to my life, I was returned to Walpole State Prison where I stayed another 19 months. So not only did I stay another 19 months, but ultimately when I was released. And during this time, I mentioned earlier about Al Jazeera America and Joe Burlinger. They're talking about the issues about the system and when they looked at parole, one of the things that happened was my girlfriend and a few other community members created an online petition to advocate for my release. They got 158,000 signatures. So when Al Jazeera America and Joe Burlinger are researching the issue of parole in Massachusetts and they're contacting Patty Garan and a few other people in the state who are authorities on this issue. They said this is not only the Massachusetts parole system messed up, but this is a prime example about how this messed up it is. So that's why that Joe Burlinger and Al Jazeera America featured me in their documentary. They made a comparison between this system and Massachusetts parole system. Don, can you tell us something about what the universe of restrictions is that you have to deal with on a daily basis as a parolee? You will be a parolee for the rest of your life, is that? Is there any hope of escaping this? Technically, at this juncture I'm a second degree life on parole for armed robbery. And I'm currently filing a rule 30 which is to vacate the dissenters but from a technical perspective I'm on parole for life. But let me just back up a minute David because one of the things, so the 19 months that I was incarcerated I'm totally blown away because I have worked almost 30 years to turn my life around. Every day every hour I'm sitting in a wall post saying like how can this be happening to me? And then people are talking about the parole board since the Dominic and Nellie thing, they've all bought Josh Walls all but eliminated parole in Massachusetts and I'm saying but listen, once I get in front of that parole board I don't care if they're a panel of Nazi generals they're going to have to turn me loose because I haven't done anything. The bottom line is once Josh Wall did is he okay? The officer is calling an ambulance. I'm so sorry. That's fine. Is he okay? He's okay? So but the thing of it is once the former chairman Josh Wall was interviewed by Joe Brolinja of the system what he said was I don't know what Mr. Perry did or something. Ultimately when I got out the 20th this month is a year that I've been back out on parole. June of last year Josh Wall was nominated for a judgeship I'm sure people in this room some people have heard about the opposition the dimensional opposition that he had to his judgeship not only for almost eliminating parole in the state of Massachusetts but for him to be able to eliminate parole as a district attorney antics such as obstructing the same justice that he was supposed to be providing. But the bottom line is after having this was unprecedented that anyone that's ever been nominated for a judgeship to have the kind of opposition that they did from criminal lawyers community leaders, prison advocates ultimately October 3rd Josh Wall admitted publicly that he had me locked up for 19 months without even reading the court transcripts or anything to consider the relevant facts about that I shouldn't have been locked up and his justification was but eventually I let him go. So not only did he cost me 19 months of my life I mean I'm still trying to catch up on bills and everything too but even as individual taxpayers he cost the commonwealth of Massachusetts just in my situation alone over a hundred thousand dollars that he can ill afford based on a whim so when I talk about the the invisible violence and the transparency and holding people accountable and you know in my entire experience of the Massachusetts of being on parole once I was released from prison I thought I brought into the notion of the system of meritocracy that if I rehabilitate myself rehabilitation is supposed to be progressive if I keep doing the right thing I'm going to build a life for myself but I know like any minute right now someone could say I did something and I'm right back in prison but that we that's one of the reasons why I've created a project called operation project operation change to antiquated and abusive policies of the Massachusetts parole system this is a statewide initiative this is a statewide initiative to make parole to change the cultural biases of parole and make it the rehabilitative process that it should be parole is not about at this stage parole is not about advocating for people it's about policing people and it's the one dimensional identity I've done everything possible on parole but to them I'm just a parolee and so I hope that answers your question thank you very much Tom I appreciate hearing your story I don't know if the other people in the room know this but Don came a long way tonight to share your story with us thank you for making that effort there's many aspects of that that are very powerful one of the things that was most meaningful to me was to hear you tell the story of your two different incarceration experiences the first place where it was all about punishment and where you actually made you went backwards not forwards you get transferred to another prison where they have a different way of thinking about opportunities for rehabilitation and you blossom under those circumstances so that suggests to me that not just only in at the incarceration phase but at the policing phase also there are better ways to there are better practices I was struck by President Obama in his speech again on that night of Ferguson where he talked about seemed to suggest that the problem of unfair policing is not unsolvable that there are techniques and best practices that can be learned and that can go a long way toward solving some of the problems that we talk about here around unequal justice the good news he said is we know there are things we can do to help so my question for the panelists anybody who wants to address this Fred I'm particularly interested to say about this and Frank as well but anybody to what extent if we accept for the sake of argument that there is a problem of unequal justice in the way the law is enforced how much of that is a solvable problem involving best practices and the adoption of new techniques some of which you've already talked about with us Fred and how much of that is a much deeper social historical problem that we're not going to solve in our generation you know I think you touched on it earlier about us against them and everybody digging their heels in I think the first step is to recognize that from a macro level and from a policy level some change needs to occur and I always like to cite the example before others may have heard it in the mid 1980s I was taught by a program sponsored by the United States Department of Justice how to racially profile as a young cop I was taught how to do it it was under this highway drug and addiction program and so that was by the United States Department of Justice and so we need to and I'm sure there's other policy and trainings that are going on that fly in the face of common sense and so I'm happy to see Representative Garbley came in tonight because one of my frustrations in these discussions is often times lawmakers are absent and there may be others here tonight that I haven't seen but I know Rep Garbley is here thank you Representative Garbley and we need to get our lawmakers engaged we've got a bill on Beacon Hill Rep Garbley on Restorative Justice we talked about it earlier before you came in I hope you support that bill yeah alright thank you so engaging lawmakers looking at policy and really the other thing is just briefly we did a training with our Allenton offices and we worked with the Human Rights Commission and others in the community and we went over to the Wintermoor Robbins House on a Saturday and we hired a facilitator long story short is we hire from the human race and we recognize that our offices come to their profession with biases because of their own upbringing and background and so we in a safe way allow them to talk about their upbringing and what biases they may bring to the job and we were able to give them tools on how to check their biases when they're making an enforcement decision one example is an officer admitted jeez I see somebody covered in tattoos I automatically think the guy's bad and so we flushed that out for a while and talked about and helped them realize why it really isn't it isn't the case but now that officer when he engages in his law enforcement duties and was able to in a safe place talk about his biases because the problem is as soon as somebody says jeez I've got this bias they're labeled a bigot or a racist or this or that and we've got to stop the name calling and us against them as you talked about and be able to have mature conversations about where we're going to go next thank you so I think just a little bit to follow up from what Fred said you know this whole bias situation I mean I think what I want to clarify a little bit more about that is that yes there are biases that we're aware of and then there are biases that we're completely unaware of and that is what's known as implicit bias or implicit race bias and you know Mazarin Banerjee has done a lot of work on that and she's come up with a test that way you can just go on the computer test and it's very interesting how even people who consider themselves pretty liberal and you know and people like us when they take the test you know I don't know how many most of you might have read Malcolm Gladwell's blink so it's that blink response that between seeing something and reacting you really haven't had time to process it but it's an automatic response and that's what they've done in the implicit bias test is that you take the test and they throw words at you for example so like let's say they throw good and bad out and then they have a ton of words out there and as you're associating and it's very interesting that usually the concept of being black is associated with in the negative way so these are the implicit biases and that's I think what happens very often it's not that people are you know a lot of people are not necessarily trying to be racist so to say but these are just built in and that we have to be so much more conscious of it and that's why I think in all our systems whether it's the workplace and you know as Fred was mentioning in the police departments but also in school systems it's really important that they be tremendous this kind of cultural competency training so that people can really understand their biases and see how they're reacting so let me go back to my favorite topic of school to prison pipeline I mean in 2009 to 2010 there were 3 million out of school suspensions and 92,000 arrests and 18% of the preschool children we're talking about 4 and 5 year olds here 18% of that are blacks and they comprise for almost half of the students who are out of school suspensions so it's really you know when you're putting 4 and 5 year olds in out of school suspensions there's something wrong there so I think again to go back to what Fred is talking about restorative justice some schools have started this and you know like for example they have the circle keeper system they have the so when students are tardy or they're late you know how do we bring them into the system and keep them in school instead of giving them punitive punishments you know instead of just racking those up and then finally saying okay you've been tardy six times or whatever it is and let's you know we have to suspend you instead of going into other methods that for example Fred was mentioning about community service you know programs where they can actually maybe stay in school you know and still learn because what happens with out of school suspensions often is children will just pretend that they were suspended that they were sick they were home sick and a lot of kids believe me are extremely happy that they're getting to state to state school at home so in a way it's an incentive rather than a deterrent for a lot of kids it is in fact if one is trying to send a message out to other students that this behavior will not be tolerated and you really want and if a school system wants to go down a shaming path the better thing is to do is to do in-school suspension where all the students can see that hey the student has an in-school suspension if you really want to go down a punitive path but the main thing is how much learning is being lost and how to bring these students into circles and you know so how to change a system from one of being punitive and at every level whether that's the police level or the school levels or in any level you know college levels anything to being one of a culture of compassion and empathy and holding students responsible but in ways that are restorative that are empathy based that are based in things like community service and so they're still held accountable you're not putting them up but you're not sending them a very drastic line. Thank you Bonnie. I want to just give an endorsement to this implicit bias test. Bonnie was telling me about it today it's easy to find if you Google implicit bias and the tests are very interesting and we'll tell you things about yourself that may not make you feel great about yourself. But I highly recommend going through it. I want to get to questions from the audience just a moment but I want to give Frank an opportunity to respond to that question. How much is it about how much how far can we go by implementing best practices as some of which we've heard a lot about tonight and how much of it is a deeper rooted social and historical cultural racial problem. So I think that it's a deep rooted social problem for the most part that techniques are important and I certainly applaud what's happening in Arlington and what I know of what's happening in Cambridge but we have to realize these are Arlington and Cambridge and the people from the human race that are being hired are coming from everywhere and the people in Arlington and Cambridge still have implicit biases. So the technique can only help as much as it is changing some behaviors that people would otherwise not do. Let me put it another way. We all have biases and given that we all have biases I don't know that a technique can stop you from your instant blink response unless it has truly become ingrained. I hope that these techniques like the procedural justice help change people from faking it sometimes to actually making it but I worry that we'd have to change a lot more in the entire culture because that officer or that school teacher goes home and sees the local news and we know that local news is a primary source of implicit bias. Thank you. Now I think we have a couple of microphones circulating in the audience is that correct? Yes, here in the yellow sweater we want this to be over on this side of the room as well this is not just a panel discussion but a public conversation and this is the point in the program where I'd like to invite any of you to address any questions you like to any of our panelists. Here we go. So here. Thank you. I have a question. You know it may be helpful to tell us just a little bit about your name and who you are talking to. Yeah, sure. Thanks. My name is Anne Emmerich. I'm a member of Temple Shiatikva in Winchester. I'm also a psychiatrist at Mass General. I have a question about kind of the opposite direction from what you're talking about. I wonder when police officers do the kind of work you're talking about that great work about talking about biases whether they talk about how often they give a pass to people because of white privilege. So I have a sort of a personal anecdote. One person loves astronomy and he was out in the yard one night with his telescope and a neighbor walking by thought he was a burglar and called the police. The lights were off because he was out looking at the stars. The police came and as soon as he said it was his home they left and shortly thereafter Professor Gates was stopped in Harvard you know in Harvard Square in his home but it made me think about what if he wasn't my husband. They never asked for proof of who he was. They never wanted to see his wife. And I thought about that a lot so that's my question sort of the opposite of what you were talking about. If I could add just add one small thing to that question that brings up sort of the issue of discretion officers discretion at the point of contact and I'm curious about what role that plays. Yeah, again getting back to a comment I made earlier we tried to train and I will point out while Rep Gobbley is in the room Massachusetts is the fifth in the bottom in terms of funding per capita for police officers in America believe it or not. Our training for police officers is woefully underfunded in Arlington we use alternative funding sources but that's not true outside of the Canberges and the Arlington throughout the Commonwealth but my point is you know behaviors we train on people's behaviors are what results in the reasonable suspicion of the probable cause not their gender, not their race not their status in society or anything else it's their behaviors and so if we get officers to focus on what is the behavior the person is engaging in that rises to the level that it's suspicious or reasonable suspicion or probable cause that an officer can take an action so and again we do that also with our call takers so that incident you referenced was probably somebody phone that in probably there's a suspicious person our call takers are trained that doesn't rise to the level of police engagement or police response what is suspicious about the person oh he's you know climbing up a ladder in the back window and hauling out a widescreen TV okay we're gonna send the police officer but just the presence of a person in the backyard we're gonna we're cautiously going to approach a call for service like that and it gets back to training rep gobbly training training training which we have no money for so I think it's great that you raise the idea of privilege because all of us probably in this room in various ways have privileges especially the long lines of for me being a male regardless of whether I may face other challenges as a black male there are benefits that accrue to me regardless of whether I request them and which will continue to operate in my favor unless I do something to affirmatively disgorge them and there are lots of examples of that I think for my life as a professor I think about the fact that the female professors who are also on my faculty face greater challenges with authority in the classroom and it's not because our students at Suffolk are any more prejudiced than any other students when it comes to gender it's just that they assume authority more for a male than for a female so what does that mean for this type of situation I think what it means is the most secret thing to do which probably would seem awkward is to sort of say well, why are you just letting me go and I think it could be and there's been some talk of this because of an episode of This American Life and it could be something that actually saves an officer to not walk into the room eyeball the black male and say that's the threat here when it could be a threat that somebody else and that we've sort of given the person who may in fact be the danger the privilege of not being suspicious without thinking about it thank you for that question well personally I think that uh, ceiling record is a myth and the reason why I say that is because that I mean, you know the internet is information highway and people don't realize that say I could be applying for a job here in Arlington and when they a job or even housing they have so they would have their own insurance companies the insurance company would have their own criminal record companies that would research so I might be applying for a job in Arlington the insurance company got a query a research company out in Arkansas or somewhere that all of this is public information that you can access so when people go through that process that arduous process of supposedly ceiling their record then ultimately what does that that mean so one agency has dealt with it but just got billions of other sources where that's gonna pop up my thing is what I always say to people is go through an actual formal query appeal with the criminal history system board anytime you're applying for a job or a housing look what that process is because they have each one has an appeal process and you need to legitimate go through that process at least once because once you go to the first time that I went through the process to get hired it took me eight months the next time that I applied for a job it took less than 45 minutes for them to deal with the query appeal process because I had already gone through the process once I had all of the information and everything compiled and all I had to do was present it to them for the sake of convenience like here it is and so this is what people need to do and one of the main obstacles and I'm just gonna add this that people need to overcome with that is the shame first of all they need to know what's in their record they need to not be shamed by I mean quick question about sure hands how many people in this room have ever did something wrong come on today you know what I'm saying I mean and so but in that instance what people you know you paid the consequences and you moved on with your life and I think this is what people need to do in those situations that has any kind of history to just move on to come to terms with it and move on thank you Don that reminds me of something my father used to always say I made a mistake once he used to say I've reached my name is Neil and first I want to thank the audience the discussion that I believe you are now the solution the start of the conversation is how you make us a type of that if you can see me around houses I think you will work with me about town I have to share my experience going up in my town as a young class I didn't have much experience dealing with the police I had parents at home who I actually thought would attempt to take my life I had a whole life in this office but then later I'm having to wait for absolute police officers by the very nature of the individuals I think in high school so there are more individuals I now interact with on a regular basis and I know that because I grew up with that and it gets like questions for the panelists one of the problems that Ferguson faced was a disconnect between the citizens and the individuals who are in charge of enforcing the laws how can we get young people in high schools that are all racist and typed to be interested in law enforcement because of the individuals coming to the school to be a part of the individual in a whole town or a possible law to get closer to people because it won't be far away that there's no opportunity to make a different individual act on the possible law Thanks, who wants to take that? Well I think I'd like to add to that a little bit and that is about also law enforcement bit to the expert here but but I think it's more about also getting people of color in all kinds of positions not just law enforcement but in positions in the town in selectmen positions in town meeting members all those things in the schools in the classrooms as well as having students I think one of the things about our town is that we are a predominantly white town and having you know it's really important that we have students of color in our classrooms and we do have the medical program which many of you know of but that is a critical critical critical program in our school systems even though the numbers are small it would be much better if the numbers were much higher but it's really important to have that and that I say about and what is interesting is when you look at the research the benefits of having a diverse classroom accrue more to white students than to students of color and what I mean by benefits are things like increase in cognitive complexity increase in you know just all the learning outcomes are much higher for white students than for students of color because what happens to white students of color often there's been and I'm sure you know Frank would be able to talk to you but there was a study done of for example Harvard and Michigan and all the top law schools and what they found in those law schools is that the students who were students of color had already had a lot of interaction with people of other races prior to coming to law school the white students had had extremely segregated upbringings and this was the first time being at university was the first time when they were actually meeting students of color and why is that important because when you look at things like constitutional law and those kind of things it changes the nature of a classroom because different racial groups have different opinions about vital things like capital punishment and so it's really important that right from the school levels, the elementary school levels we try to make our classrooms more and more diverse because the population is changing by 2050 whites will be a minority you know it's a single large minority but still a minority and our children need to be able to function in that world thank you Fred maybe you can take this question now and there's his part, the questioner's part about how we can encourage more young people to be interested in careers in law enforcement I'm also curious about how you make hiring decisions in Arlington, how much do you think about racial diversity, how much do you think about long standing relationships with the community do you have quotas, how do you hire yeah thank you and that's another frustration of mine and I'm glad we have some state reps in the room I'm not going to have a job tonight if I keep feeding up on these guys I have a little to no discretion on the demographic background of the people we hire as police officers under Massachusetts civil service law we have to go by a list that results from a multiple choice exam the hiring system is flawed the hiring system is broken we have had a state of gold, I mean nobody's going to be able to convince me that having a more diverse police department wouldn't be a valuable thing in any community particularly in Arlington so because we're handcuffed by the hiring process largely driven by unions I have to go and get creative, I mean we can't use that as a crutch so what I do is I go out to the community colleges in fact I think I'm at Bunker Hill on April April 2nd I think and I go to the criminal justice programs in the community colleges and I also go to Middlesex and my kids generally go to Bunker Hill or Middlesex and I give a presentation on taking the civil service exam and how to succeed and it's a power point and how to prepare yourself for the exam last year I was giving that and a young man came up to me and introduced himself after the class he was a young man of color and he lives in Arlington he said oh chief I want to meet you I don't recall his name we shook hands and maybe I had a blink response but I said where do you live in town and I could see him sort of his body language and he said well I live in the projects and I said well I grew up in the projects on 96 Fremont Street and I saw him light up and he said my chief grew up in the projects so my point is we try to get creative to get around this civil service system and we try to get the kids that want to be police officers and take the exam and help them succeed in the exam that said we should have far more discretion on hiring our police officers than we do in Massachusetts it's a shame and that's one change I hope we'll come above from these meetings well I'm going to applaud that but there's a case which you probably heard about because it's associated with out of Connecticut where they tried to throw out the firefighter exam because it wasn't producing a diverse firefighting force and I think it raised something that Fred has talked about as being important that we really need a sort of multi-component system in all facets of life if we are to find the people who will be best for that particular environment and given the context of who's already in that environment so I would agree that if we want to have diverse police forces and police forces with a variety of skills then we have to think about changing our methods of hire from a straight up test which we already know sort of demographically what it's going to produce to other things that might be more important like if you meet somebody from the community and they demonstrate that they would be a good police officer in terms of how they interact with people in that community that should count for something. Who's next? Another question. Right here. I don't see the person asking the question. Right here. Hi, good evening. I'm Andrea James from Families for Justice as Healing. This is a panel at Rocksbury that is comprised of formerly incarcerated women and we use our voice to create change here in Massachusetts primarily to raise public awareness about the need to reduce the incarceration population of women and before I thank the panel I just want to thank Representative Dave Rogers who I just saw, it's over there. Rep Rogers is a co-sponsor that's just been filed here in Massachusetts that would create an alternative to incarceration for primary caretakers of dependent children. And I'd like to say thank you to Dawn for sharing your story and ask if you could make some recommendations. We have members but I'm thinking of one in particular who also sits on our board. Tina Williams has been on parole for 40 years in the state of Massachusetts and Tina is a remarkable woman who has helped hundreds upon hundreds of women and has just recently left on the rise but was at on the rise for many many many years in Cambridge of an amazing woman and is still the petition that we did for her was overlooked by the last governor who just left office. How do we ask for and engage communities such as this one in helping us in our endeavors to move people off of parole in Massachusetts who clearly demonstrate such as yourself that they should not have to endure that continued incarceration any longer. Well I think that one of the first obstacle is to overcome like you said earlier about raising awareness and educating people about what the current state of Massachusetts parole system is. We've spent two decades 2000 2001 the Boston Bar Association created a task force to do research about the issues regarding the state of the Massachusetts parole system. They made five recommendations including what you're talking about like commentations and partings and stuff. Ten years later none of those five recommendations was implemented. The Governor's Council assembled another panel of people to do two years research. They resend 2012 they submitted what is you can go online and see what is called the white papers. The white papers included those five recommendations and also added a couple more including as you mentioned rehabilitative incentives. As of today none of those recommendations have been implemented. That right there is one of the primary objectives of project operation change to change the antiquated policies and abusive practices of the Massachusetts parole system. As I said earlier this is a statewide initiative I'll be coming through Allerton and doing some different event to raise people awareness to help people get support because ultimately we want to inspire our local officials legislative officials to enforce what we talked earlier about what laws, what policies are already written. We've already spent two decades of doing research about this. Now let's just do it because it is having a devastating effect on people's lives. And even for again Joe public that feels like this doesn't have anything to do with him. But the bottom line is very simple. It's cost less to supervise someone on parole where they're paying then for you to be paying $45,000 a month to house them in an institution. So this is, we need to talk but this is what needs to be done. We need to read, we need to really address the issues statewide of the Massachusetts parole system. What can we do? And what are the benefits? How does diversity in the classroom affect educational outcomes? So yeah, so I think one of the things is I think the superintendent body is here so I mean I don't want to speak for her but so if she wants to speak that's fine. I mean I think we could let her talk a little bit because the school system has been working. They do have a superintendent's diversity advisory group and we meet with the superintendent once a month and come up with ideas and so I don't know if superintendent body would like to speak or do you want to say what I think? Okay, okay you lad, okay. So I think one of the things is that as far as in our meetings with the school system I think one of the things that we've found is that the pay for teachers that the Arlington school system offers does not compete with some of the other areas and superintendent body can of course correct if I'm you know what I'm saying it's mistaken but for example the Boston public schools pay much more and it's so one thing is of course I think that's a factor so in order to attract teachers of course maybe pay is an important factor I think one of the things though is that it's not just about attracting teachers and this I'm going to just talk from the research out there that when there are certain factors for example when you have teachers of color they are much more comfortable teaching diversity in the classroom and typically white teacher, sorry typically women teachers are more comfortable like among white populations to talk about diversity than men you know there are certain subjects that are more prone towards bringing in diversity as a topic for example you know the liberal arts of course than for example the heart sciences but again you know there are some small examples and some of you might have heard this before but for example in the school systems some of the ways to include diversity even if we can't include the teachers for example one is of course the student population you know if we can make sure that the MedCo program lasts that there's funding for it because there's supposed to be more budget cuts you know not on the state level and so those programs are there and that MedCo programs really work at integrating students you know those are some of the things there has to be a critical cohort otherwise if you just have a few students in there they are going to just suffer from minority stressors they become they feel like they are the token you know black student in the classroom there has to be a cohort so that they can actually succeed and flourish that's one of the things another way to increase diversity would be things like little changes for example in a math program you know let's say at the third grade but instead of Frank giving Jane Frank has five apples and he gives Jane two if we use you know Jamila gives Ali two the names really matter I know it sounds superficial but there has been research done and I think it's his name is Mulyanathan and he was a social scientist at Chicago and he did a research where they sent out 150 resumes which were identical in every way the only thing that was different was the name the callbacks for the standard what we consider the norm white names were much higher than those for you know what I considered as particularly black or diverse names so I think this is where again that implicit bias works in so right from the school system and from early on we have to make these changes for example in Darlington public schools in the third grade at least in my kids school my kid goes to Dallin they have a biography project where a student chooses somebody and then presents you know reads about it writes about it or acts it out or something like that and children you know they were encouraged and they chose people of color so my daughter chose Harry Tubman my son when he was in third grade chose Frederick Douglass but that is because we are encouraging him at home to do that the other students choose wonderful people I mean Alexander Graham Bell you know wonderful people they're all people worth knowing about but the question is if the teacher just puts a small thing which says choose somebody from a different race or a different culture that is yours immediately the classroom will be flooded with role models from different races and different cultures this is what changes mine so even if we can't change the fact that we don't have a teacher of color there we can change the mindset of the students a lot and I think as far as teachers of color it's not just about hiring them you know of course there has to be much more outreach which the school system is reaching out more to colleges which are training teachers of color you know targeted sort of recruitment but also committees the hiring committees again and this is research that's done that hiring committees will not hire a person who is different from them because people are just again it's implicit bias they're just more comfortable with people who are like them unless there's a mandate unless they've been instructed to do so therefore when at college levels when faculty committees hire they have to be instructed otherwise they will hire what they're familiar and comfortable with how are resumes weighted you know for example if there are two comparable candidates you know does the fact that one is a diverse candidate and has diverse experiences does that matter for example in the Harvard admission process that has become a factor you cannot do sort of race based but what is it do they bring diverse experiences so for example if the class is looking mostly urban students they might admit a student who is from rural Idaho because they have a diverse experience and because it enriches the classroom interaction so I think these are all many ways in which we can try to diversify our children's education and again as far as teachers are concerned targeted recruiting you know changing the nature of the committees that are doing the hiring instructing the committees to really sort of not just you know please consider diversity but really making them understand training the teachers in implicit bias and making them understand the value the learning outcomes for students for white students especially when there's a diverse classroom all those things will matter you know might change the mind of who is being hired and then of course after the hiring there's the retention you can't just hire people of color who come in and start suffering from minority stressors where they feel like if they really speak up about how they feel and what they think they're going to be regarded as playing the race card you know we have to have that kind of environment also after that I just wanted to cut you off we have about 5 minutes left I think we have time for two more questions that would be answered succinctly yes I will take just one minute thank you Bonnie Kathleen Bowdy superintendent of schools this is a very appropriate and good question this is something that we are focusing on we one of the things we do is we actively recruit we have a coffee for possible applicants invite them from minority fairs we have sponsored those kinds of hiring job fairs at the Ellington High School but it is in general there is not a large pool of candidates and one of the things that we have taken in the district is to be one of several communities that have become a program called today's students tomorrow's teachers and this is a program that begins in ninth grade and helps students develop their skills and interest in entering the field of education with the idea that at some point they may come back to this community or to another community as a teacher so it is something that we I don't want you to think that it is something that we do not focus on it is something that we have a laser light on right now thank you Superintendent Bowdy just one quick question do you face do you have any more freedom in your hiring decisions than chief Ryan does or are you under the same kinds of restrictions no we don't have the same restrictions with respect to civil service other constraints and one of which is certification for a particular position but no we do not but you face the same challenge we have in terms of retention we board a Cambridge in Boston and to the extent we have had some success at recruiting and hiring minorities for good reason they look to go to higher paying professions in Cambridge and Boston we have experienced that many years ago I worked both at Simmons and Harvard and that was actually an issue of a lot of the students of color did not want to work in suburbs that were more white they would choose positions in Cambridge or Boston because of one of the things that Bonnie was talking about and that is being part of a group of colleagues that have a similar background and race so yes it is an issue it is an issue we have had coffees to try to bring people of color from all of our schools together and those have been quasi successful they have happened a couple of times a year but it is an issue it is a big issue I failed to mention and with the help of our legislative delegation Rep Rogers, Govley and Senator Donnelly we have been able to get department of mental health funding to have a mental health clinician on staff in the police department under what we call the correspondent model when we were back and analyzed incidents of use of force the overwhelming majority of cases involving police use of force the person who had force used against them mental health or substance abuse issues so now we have a correspondent mental health clinician and I thought we get a lot of push back from the officers you know a psychologist in the police car with now it is the most rewarding program we have ever implemented I hear the radio I heard it tonight on the way here is the clinician available we need the clinician here so as a result of that program our arrests have gone down and so while we have to explain that to the finance community they say arrests are down we need fewer cops no arrests have gone down by design we don't need fewer cops we want our arrests going on if we could have the crime rates stay the way it is and have zero arrests we would be happy with that as a police department and so it is so critically important in our health and human services director Christine Bonjono works in partnership with the police department it is a true legitimate partnership but that program to our legislative folks that are here tonight we've got to sustain the funding for that it's been phenomenally successful at driving down not only driving down arrests driving down incidents of use of force we review our use of force every January we review the prior every incident gets broken down what happened here and we were seeing mental health mental health and that's how we implemented that program so thank you for reminding me of that so thanks very much I just want to point out we are going to close now we're about four minutes past nine o'clock and we should finish on time there might still be some food left in the back I know that there is a reading list for people who want to learn more about the topics we've been discussing tonight it's my understanding if I'm wrong that if you buy the books on the reading list at the Arlington Book Rack you'll get a 30% discount and support a local book seller my deep thanks to our panelists to Frank to Fred to Bonnie and to Don thank you for your professional experience your personal experience taking time out on a Saturday night deeply appreciated thank you so much