Good evening.
I wanted to start my presentation with this quote
because it raises a question that I ask myself daily
and the answer eludes me.
And that question is, "Why do we continue
to support a criminal legal system that
criminalizes the poor and protects the affluent
and the wealthy who are predominantly white?"
And as a lawyer this is one of these questions
that has haunted me because there is no real answer.
And maybe it's because I'm not the person
to give that answer because I don't think
it's the Black, Brown, indigenous people question,
I think it's the white people question.
So one of the problems I thought about coming here
tonight and speaking was that I put
on my mask of calm and civility which is deceptive.
It's really deceptive.
What I really need to be doing is raising my voice
and screaming because there's no reason for you
to feel comfortable at an art and justice poetry reading.
You shouldn't feel comfortable.
Because justice still eludes people like me and people
like Ada.
We're still not safe and comfortable.
So what I hope to do tonight is give you
a real overview of how we serve up Justice to poor people
in Arizona.
And we're going to talk about pretrial detention
and we're going to talk about the things we might
be able to do to change that.
So can we get the next slide.
If you want to know what pretrial detention is--
I'm going to come over here a second--
pretrial detention is basically just the prop-- thank you--
it is a process of holding people in cages pending trial.
That's where pretrial justice is.
We are simply saying that some people deserve to be caged
while they're waiting for trial and other people don't.
And in Arizona we have watched that pretrial detention explode
the prison populations.
It's like tripled the population of people who are incarcerated.
So we're no longer doing the back end which is conviction
because the conviction rates are falling all across the country,
we're in fact, having one of the lowest--
historic lows when it comes to violent crimes.
You may not hear that because fear mongers don't
want you to know that actually you're
moving in a positive direction when it comes
to the type of violent crimes that
used to be a big part of the conversation in this country.
So we have jails that are empty or emptying out
not only because of policies, but also
because of proactive work of abolitionists
and other groups who are investing in communities.
And that's making a huge difference
in who's going to jail and how long they're going to jail.
And I know there are some things happening in this state
that we hope will make a difference on that end as well.
Next slide.
And you can see that the conviction rate, post
conviction rate is dropping.
And you can see what the orange that the number of people who
are being detained is rising.
And when you think of pretrial detention
I want you to know that in Arizona the people who
are driving pretrial detention are judges.
They're judges.
Because pretrial detention-- the conditions
or the terms of release are decided
by judges and magistrates.
Now that's important because I know a lot of people say,
"Oh, it's the prosecutors and it's overpolicing."
They play a part in that.
But the decision whether to release you,
to put you on bond, or to give you a cash money bail,
or use PSAs, which are a risk assessment
tools which we'll talk about, all this is done by judges.
Because within the first 24 hours of your arrest
you're brought before a judge or a magistrate who
reads the charges, who will enter guilty or innocent plea--
not guilty plea.
They will appoint attorney-- they will appoint you
an attorney if you need one.
And then what they'll do is they will
make a decision about whether you get to go home--
whether you get to go home.
So what we have right now are judges
who are actively aiding in mass incarceration
but on the front end.
Which is they're saying we're going to keep you
in jail at the county jail.
Tonight 60% to 70% of the people sitting in our jail
are there because they're poor.
Next slide.
Now the racial disparities.
If you go into our court, city court, or superior court
and just sit and watch, you're going
to see the racial disparities.
This is not-- this is nothing new.
Now most of you will probably never go to court
unless you're selected as a juror
or you have a civil matter.
But if you go and sit in court-- and you should go sit in that
court, that court belongs to you--
you will see the racial disparity.
And the thing that is so amazing to me
is that all the white males, you look at the number
and you see that number going down.
They're underrepresented.
And I always found that confounding because white males
are the most violent people in this country.
They always have been.
Now that might be news to you, but as
a former prosecutor that's always the way it's been.
But who do we see that we're incarcerating?
Black, Brown, and indigenous people.
And the people who are doing the mass murders and all
that other stuff they're not being incarcerated.
That in itself should say something
about what's wrong with our criminal legal system.
Next slide.
So what impact does pretrial detention have on people?
Well, first of all, if you are detained,
meaning that the court can do a number of things.
The court can release you on your own recognizance, which
means that we're going to put a few conditions on your release
such as don't commit other crimes, show up to court,
these are minor things.
But if we don't think that you should be free,
we can do a number of other things.
We can send you to pretrial services, which
is an organization that monitors people
and we can do things like put you on electronic monitoring
or we can put you order you into a therapeutic intervention
like drug counseling, anger counseling,
some of those things carry fees.
We can also impose cash money bail or secure bail.
Secure bail is something that you use if you have collateral.
You'll be charged a fee by bonds-bails people,
and you have to put up some collateral.
So if you're poor and you don't have the collateral,
the judge may impose a cash money bail.
But here's the deal.
Cash money bail means 100% of your bail must be paid in cash.
And that's not a big deal if you have money.
But $100, or even $50, $500 for Sandra Bland was too much.
She sat in jail.
And that's why most of the people in our jails
are sitting there now because they have cash bail.
They may have a probation hold as well.
But generally, the courts will-- they will sit you in jail--
at the local jail which is one of the hardest places
to be because unlike prison, there's
nothing to do but weight.
There are no programs, there's nothing but time.
This is considered to be really hard time.
And everything that you need, because you cannot work,
has to come from your family.
So when we talk about the cost of pretrial detention
understand that our jails are profiting off poor people.
If you go to the commissary you pay,
if you make a telephone call you pay,
if you have to go to the doctors you pay,
if you want to use those apps on those tablets they
give you for free you pay.
So this is not-- this is a money making venture
for poor people who are being squeezed.
You are taken away from your family,
you might lose your job, you might lose your house,
and most importantly, the presumption of innocence.
That you have done nothing more than being arrested and charged
with the crime.
You haven't been convicted of a crime.
But in this case, we punish you simply for being arrested.
Next slide.
And I'll go over briefly, again, some of the ways that we do--
I mentioned already cash money bail.
I mentioned the issue of mass surveillance
which is electronic monitoring, face recognition,
all the nifty things that we're doing to track people,
and that is an invasion of privacy for people who've
done nothing, like I said, other than being arrested and being
too poor to bail themselves out.
So through cash money bail, through risk assessments, which
is an interesting tool or tactic the state is now using.
Risk assessments are these so-called science-based
prediction tools.
So I'm supposed to be able to have you answer
a series of questions based on data that's coming from mostly
law enforcement types of institutions and folks
who believe in incarceration.
And based on that we'll come up with a profile--
a number, and that number tells us what kind of risk
is involved.
And that means that if you have a high number that you're
going to be held and you can be held until your trial, which
could be months away.
Thank you.
The Tucson Second Chance Community Bail Fund
was established three years ago.
And we came in initially talking about cash money
bail because that was the issue, but we soon
realized the problem is much bigger than cash money bail.
Because every time we pivot the state pivots
they will find new tactics new tools
to incarcerate people because they are in this
for real for money and for--
because they really don't have other options.
Arizona has one of the highest rates of incarceration
in the country.
So we are into the industry of prison--
the prison industrial complex is big money for us here.
And we are fighting to change that.
We're fighting to change that.
We are abolitionists we don't believe
in reforming the system, we believe
in dismantling the system and replacing it
with something else.
And so how do we get to freedom and justice?
And I'm going to--
I'm going to say this that I don't believe
that the answer is going to come from law schools and lawyers,
I think it's going to come from the creatives, the people
visionaries, the poets, the artists, the painters,
the dancers, the people who are free who challenge us.
So tonight is an important part of the conversation
because people have that heart of fire, who've always
provoked us and made us--
held us accountable, those are the people
that we need to look to.
Not lawyers and law school and legislatures.
This is ground zero for what I think Octavia Butler called
God change.
This is where the old is swept away
and something new comes to replace it.
And I'd love to hear what my sister poet has to say.
I'm sure she's placing seeds of liberation planting them
everywhere.
I hope I didn't make you guys feel comfortable.
[LAUGHTER]
Not my goal.
But I think what I didn't do she'll do.
Thank you so much.
[APPLAUSE]