WGBH Radio; The Emily Rooney Show

From WGBH in Boston this is the show. It's Tuesday May 2nd 2012 and Emily Rooney show a look at the state systems that most people agree are sorely in need of an overhaul. First Gerry Madden describes himself as a typical Texas conservative from a lock em up state. So how did he become such a fierce advocate for prison reform and why are so many leaders here in the nation listening carefully to what he has to say. Jerry Madden joins us then a personal horror story when one local parent tried to maneuver the Boston public school assignment process it drove him to the breaking point and right out of the city. Reforming the system. This hour on the show. But first the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying. Just hours after the

U.S. brokered a deal to allow a Chinese dissident to leave its embassy in Beijing. Friends of Chen Guangcheng a visually impaired self-taught lawyer are now raising doubts about that agreement. As NPR's Louisa Lim explains Chung Guangcheng left the U.S. embassy after six days to get medical treatment on his own volition. According to both the U.S. and China he was told he would be able to live in China in safety and study at university. But friends tell another story. One fellow activist songs in years says he told her he had wanted the whole family to leave China but he feared that his wife's life would be in danger if he did not leave the embassy she says. So he agreed to stay in China. This account which a second friend Lawyer Tung has confirmed throws a different light onto the deal which allows both sides to avoid an embarrassing showdown at high level talks on Thursday. Louisa Lim NPR News Beijing. President Obama is just back from his unannounced trip to Afghanistan where he signed an

agreement with President Hamid Karzai to withdraw U.S. combat forces by 2014. Mr Obama made the visit on the anniversary of the U.S. raid that led to some of bin Laden's death in Pakistan. Militants meanwhile remain defiant as snows melt and travelling becomes easier in Afghanistan the Taliban are threatening to step up their attacks against U.S. backed elements in Afghanistan and what has come to be known as the spring offensive. The announcement came hours after an attack on a foreigner's housing compound in Kabul. Seven people died. The Obama administration is pushing for a trial in its civil lawsuit against the oil giant BP. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports a case would determine responsibility for the worst oil disaster in U.S. history. The Justice Department is asking a New Orleans federal judge to set a trial date void this summer to hear the government's claim against BP. The state of Alabama is also asking for a speedy trial. The requests come more than two

years after BP as well blew killing 11 rig workers and gushing some 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. BP has reached an agreement with plaintiffs lawyers that will resolve tens of thousands of claims brought by individuals and businesses that deal is awaiting preliminary approval from the New Orleans court. The Justice Department and the state of Alabama argue that settlement should not delay the cases brought by the federal and Gulf state governments. Debbie Elliott NPR News. Unemployment is rising in the 17 countries that use the euro more than any other time since the currency took effect more than a decade ago. The European Union Statistics Office euro stat says the jobless rate rose to ten point nine percent in March. At last check on Wall Street the Dow was down 41 points at thirteen thousand two hundred thirty eight. This is NPR News. Good afternoon from the WGBH radio newsroom in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with local stories we're following. Authorities have arrested the son of one of the two women found dead near a Saugus elementary school.

The Essex district attorney's office said in a statement that 23 year old Jeffrey Wright was taken into custody at about 6:00 p.m. last night as he crossed from Maine into Canada. Wright is the son of 54 year old victim John Breaux of Lynn Breaux an elderly woman were found dead outside Lynn hersel mentary school in Saugus on Tuesday morning. The other victim has not been positively identified but authorities say she was a close relative of bros. Harvard and MIT have joined forces to offer free online courses to anyone with an internet connection. MIT has had a program called Open Courseware that makes materials for more than 2000 classes available free online. In December it announced it also would begin offering a special credential known as MIT X for people who complete the online version of certain courses. The new partnership with Harvard will be called at X Harvard president Drew Faust today said beginning this fall at X. will offer an array of courses developed by faculty at both institutions. A Fall River dentist has entered the race for the state's redrawn 4th Congressional District Republican Dr. David Steinhoff says on his website he's running because he has witnessed the effect the economy has had

on his patients and their families. Incumbent Democrat Barney Frank is retiring. General Electric is contesting a one point five six million dollar bill from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for work associated with the hoose a tonic river cleanup according to the Berkshire Eagle says in a letter that it shouldn't have to pay because the company has already paid the maximum amount for so-called oversight costs. The weather forecast for this afternoon cloudy with some patchy drizzle in your study temperature in the upper 40s tonight will be mostly cloudy with a near steady temperature in the mid 40s Thursday mostly cloudy highs in the mid 50s right now it's 40 degrees in Boston and 50 in Providence. Support for NPR comes from Carnegie Corporation of New York a foundation created to do what Andrew Carnegie called real and permanent good celebrating 100 years of philanthropy. The time is 5:48 it's live and it's local. Coming up next two hours of local talk the Emily Rooney show and the callee Crossley Show only on WGBH. Good afternoon you're listening to the Emily Rooney show while forming the system. That's the theme of

our show today later in the hour we'll be talking about the Boston public school assignment system with one parent whose personal horror story you have to hear to believe. A lot of you listening right now are also parents with school age kids who've been through this. The great to hear about your experiences good or bad. Tell us your story at Emily at WGBH dot org or post on our Facebook page where we have a thread going we'd love to share some of your stories about school assignment later in the hour but first it's a staggering number. But in this country over seven million people are incarcerated. Any given day in Massachusetts alone we've got over 12000 men and women in prison that some like a lot. Try Texas where one hundred sixty thousand people call prison home. Those statistics didn't used to bother Republican state legislator Jerry Madden who was pretty much a law and order kind of guy. But that was before that Texas speaker of the house made Madden chairman of the criminal justice system back in 2005.

The state was about to spend five hundred forty million dollars to build more prisons which got to thinking it's got to be a better way. Representative Jerry Madden of Texas joins me along with Molly Baldwin who's the executive director of Rocha an organization dedicated to keeping young people out of trouble and out of prison. Welcome to both of you. Well this is a big hot topic with me as it has been for decades. I've spent a lot of time in prisons if you want to know the truth going in and you know I hope you're going to say this is a day I'm visiting that is what I've been doing there but tell me what you tell me how this all unfolded for you Jerry. Well I've been in the legislature for 20 years in the first 12 of those by the way I'm not a lawyer. I've never been in the criminal justice and the areas where they didn't show up. Ever been in jail hollered. If I go back and have maybe a log house. But but the reality is I had never done a criminal justice I'd have been on a committee that had anything to do with questions of Criminal Justice never said I did during a long time you know I was there I did some things with

military back a long time ago but that was it. But now what. What happened was in January 2005 the speaker of the house called me in and says Jerry you're chairman of Corrections. You know of course do what you always do you say thank you Mr. Speaker I appreciate the great honor that you just done in my breath I'm saying oh God why me why did I do to deserve this. And then I asked him the question that basically changed me and changed my life I ask you well Mr. Speaker what do you want me to do and he gave me the eight words that have changed my life in the last seven years. And those are don't build new prisons they cost too much. That's was the best he's that was the mission he basically had given me at that time. Well I at that stage I knew a little bit about SR but I didn't have any idea I mean we had over 150000 people in corner an egg at 160. Well it's actually about 150 for oh right ok. It's a lot of people you know we have we have a lot. We actually increased it in what we did by putting people in for substance abuse treatment long abuse for that. But beyond that we had we had

450000 they're on probation at any one time. We had about 80000 are on parole at any one time. That's a lot a lot a lot of people. And he had said don't build a more prison one engineer sitting there thinking wow I got all the forecasts which you all have a Michigan and Massachusetts as the same type of thing I was looking at those today it's scary the forecast word upward trending and they've they've all been upwards except if you look at Texas this trend analysis they know us is well fairly flat which is which is where we've got and driven it to. With the things we did over the years and in the system we put it did you personally Gerry go into the prisons you just start looking at who these people were or did you talk to prisoners. I mean you said you're kind of a facts and figures kind of guy who started analyzing the data but how did you connect with it personally. Well I connected first of all and yet answer your question sure I've been in things similar things going on at present but I really connected with it by dealing with a Democratic state senator in Texas his

name is John Whitmire who had been the long time criminal justice chairman in our Texas Senate. And sitting down with John and he was the true expert here I was the beginner in all this I had advantage that I knew how to pass legislation was pretty good at doing that job was the true expert who probably could pass nearly as much. And he knows I say that all the time because he was one part and I'm of the other and we were the majority. So so in doing those kinds of discussions I would John I found a true expert on the system and I started working with him and others to see in this thing if we have this projection of a large number of prisoners. How do you not build new presents when I do. And you've got really two choices pretty simple to engineer. It's either open the door and let him out faster or figure out a way to slow it down coming in so that we have fewer people coming in the door well in Texas the answer was not going to be satisfactory politically as it probably would be here in Massachusetts to open the door to let him out.

So what we try to concentrate on was figuring out a way that we had fewer particularly low risk violent offenders coming into our system so that the publics would still remain safe and we could leave them still within the community where they could either be on probation or work with their local departments and also by the way continue to work and continue to have jobs back there with with whatever their family was like so they would continue their regular lives instead of being in the prison system. Remember we did most of this with low level low risk nonviolent guys. But you still had to put them through some kind of program so absolutely what costs us what we looked at in doing. We started on probation started working with the probation department and looked especially courts and shortening probation terms and more intensive probation and things like that. And in fact it is the bill failed in the first session we had but we started looking at all of the ways at that time that people got to prison. How do they get there how do how and where could you break that cycle.

And there's actually in my opinion if I place you break the cycle you could break it very early childhood. It's a long term. Think you can break it in the school systems where we have lots of problems now with it with kids getting disciplinary things that are giving them criminal records and we also have a lot of kids in the juvenile system which are still you know juveniles and maybe that is a really serious thing. But that that they are still in that system that you look at the probation side of the adult probation and the people get arrested they get into the system and what happens with them in the local jails what local courts and what happens particularly in probation if we give additional support to the probation department in particular they will retain people in their community if they have the right amount of funds to do that and they have the right amount of personnel. We look in the prisons and said we have the programs that really change people make them different how do you change the thought of Dr. Graham's presence. There are in Texas there are hours some substance abuse treatment alcoholic treatment programs.

Training mind training programs now are they perfect. I mean when you're dealing with that many people do all of them get the right program the right time you know and then we also looked at Pro by the way. And what happens a person is released and we still do those things and we can give short term interventions. So if somebody gets out and they go back to their old routine of you know whatever it was drug utilization or whatever that we in fact had a shorter term reaction to some of those people and we put them in for a month or two months into what we called an intermediate sanction rather than put him back in preventive back in prison for four five years we put it back in for an immediate sanction for it I was saying you know your act up it's something like what judge the judge is doing in Hawaii with the hope courts were doing something along that lines of intermediate intervention and immediate intervention with people so that they reacted differently. So that started us on the process and we had in in 2007 we had the projection by our board that we needed to build three new prisons at a cost of about 530 to 540 million dollars. But by

that time we had our data in line. We said if we instead of doing that the alternative to doing that are what. To help with your probation departments to help with your parole departments with intermediate sanctions with substance abuse treatment with mental health treatment because we have a lot of mental health patients in the criminal justice system. Do additional things on mental health. Do you think for alcoholics How many alcoholics do we truly have in the system and guarantee a mass just as a lot of alcoholics locked up we had a lot of alcoholics locked up in Texas from all the full day that you guys. But it but I look the type of prisoners we had and said I think I have to touch prisoners once were afraid of and ones that were bad at the end and the ones who were afraid that people should be afraid of and they're legitimately people in this world that need to be locked up for a long long time. But there are a lot of them were bad. And if we could change them in such a way so that the public is no longer going to be bad at them they will understand that that is generally a lower risk less violent offender. And they've done things that are stupid.

Just problems that they had within their lives that if they come back and we do the right things for them because because of the types of prisoners we also have their prisoners will always be back in our system. There are some who will never come back. And there are some who it depends on what you do will be back or not be back and that's where you use your money that's where the discussion came out of money was U.S. money for those people that you can't change them so that you can break them in this cycle of violence. And so that they're no longer going to be returning back to prison or are are getting involved if you break it break them in the probation side so that they're no longer involved in the criminal justice system we certainly do a lot to expand specially courts the drug court ideas are or are pretty darn good they they work well and they're well well run and well then they do a great job with people to intervene with them. We encourage them we encourage other specialty courts we encourage shorter

and more strict. We're watching people on probation. There's just a cycle of things that truly made the difference in Texas because we changed that projection. There are maybe upwards of 17000 to a flat level where we have back close a prison this last year. Talk to Texas State Representative Jerry Madden who's in town talking to local prison reform groups and Molly Baldwin who's executive director of Rocha is here now. Your group sort of focuses on young people some of the populations that we're talking about here kids who might be at risk of getting into problems with guns drugs alcohol all that. So how did you make a connection with Jerry. Well we have a mutual friend Lynn angles and I had asked Len about finding someone to come talk about prison reform that was really successful so chairman Madden graciously agreed to join us. So we just met yesterday actually so our hope is the kind of tie the work with very high risk young offenders to systemic reform so that we can really make a bigger difference and get so if your

population offenders for the most part people have been in and out for one so increase a low level kind of actually we're really committed to working with young people who are high risk offenders between the ages of 18 and 24. Who are highly disconnected and disengaged from both work and school and then engaging them over a long period of time and putting them through programming that helps them change their thinking. As a chairman she shared different evidence based practices she get there thinking different so their behavior is different. Teaching them to work and the program model is built with a community based expectation that you actually can with enough support keep young people in the community. And then secondly it takes a failure and relapse and turns it into another opportunity for young people to learn because the group is so disengaged what we want to do is keep bringing them in until they see it. Do these people come to you through the prison system do they say they're coming out they've been in jail for 18 months or four months whatever it is they're likely to re-offend.

Do they get directed to you. So we meet sometimes we meet young people in the street then we assess what the risk level is sometimes are referred by courts probation police and the sheriff's department could be on the front end of the backend and we're currently working on both sides of the state right now with some groups on an alternative corrections model for high risk young offender so we'd like to set ourselves up to be an alternative to incarceration. And Emily one of the things that's interesting there's a definition of High Risk at least in the risk analysis. There are two places or two types of high risk ones a high risk that they're going to reach do the same thing that they did whatever it was that got him in the present. And the other side of high risk is somebody that's a high risk of a violent offense. And so when you do risk analysis you go look at both and there are lots of people out there who are high risk of repeating the same offense they had. There are a lot fewer that are high risk of doing really violent things but there but they both fit in the analysis but you have to do that you're now OK look at risk. What about what takes place in the prisons themselves you say that there are some programs

alcohol drug treatment in that but just the way prisons are set up with the cells and the rigidity of the hours and you know exercise time in this I mean it I mean it's just set up for failure and some of these you know sex offender programs and the drug it's like you go to class you read the thing you take the test. I mean it's not meaningful. You're looking at me like I know you right. Yeah I just I mean I'm not advocating Norway's system either I mean they've got a whole different set of circumstances there but they individuals are not treated with the kind of indignities and humiliations that we do and I'm not soft on criminals I'm not soft on crime Believe me I'm not. But the prison system as it is it seems to me anyway promotes and fosters more of the kind of behavior in a more aggressive way than it did before they got there in the first place. There there that is a concern that's there and in some institutions that certainly the case in others and you see examples of them

now emerging around the country there are others where instead of doing the kind of environment you just you're talking about there are some places where they're now encouraging a totally different type of environment. That they have within the incarcerated population. So you know it's like everything else you look for the examples of what's doing the good and what's not working because things you describe are generally things that are not working. Whereas there are some programs there are some institutional settings where things do appear to be working that the people are in fact getting treatment for example for drug addiction or alcoholism or they're in fact getting educational things and you know the institution still is about security and about safety. And you've got to provide that not just for the general public but you've got to provide that for other inmates doing stuff that has other people in those facilities and you've also got to provide that for protecting the staff that's there and you've got to protect

the you know you know medals from the staff sometimes so they can't have an open prison system and based on the federal model or something like that I understand that. But I'm just talking about basic human nature. I do think I actually think that we can run a prison system that has more dignity. We do know enough in this country about what works and what doesn't. And I think the challenge and the opportunity for Massachusetts right now is to begin that there's a few things in place I think that will help us begin one as I know that. Department of Corrections is going to work with the Pew Pew data project to start to look at actual data about what we're doing in the system and how much the costs are and how people are being returned our communities. The second thing is I think that there's a commission on corrections as a huge step forward for the state and hopefully that will get us to look at the kinds of questions you're raising what in fact are we doing behind the wall. We actually incarcerate about 25000 people in the state. And then. I know that over the past few years in Massachusetts the crisis is with both probation and parole as difficult as they are hopefully what they do is they provide us with an opportunity to go

OK it's really time to look at some things that work and so I think the challenge of the state right now and the opportunity is how do we come together and really look at data and look at things at work and bring about a change. This has been done before I'm sure you're familiar with Hershberger report came back with you know really a harsh view this is after John Gagan now the pedophile priest was murdered and surely a barren landscape I think and there was a couple other high profile incidents that occurred inside the prison and he went in there and looked at it with a fresh look and came back with you know all these recommendations that were from the mundane like like the prisoners complaining about soap slime or scum right was to you know just basic needs and you know. Feeling in some complaints about access to certain things I mean just clothing for instance I mean if you're an indigent prisoner you can't have can't buy a new pair of socks you can't buy a shirt without holes in it. I mean yeah I mean these are base this time we have to do something. I think that's the difference I would hope. We certainly we we chairman met with a

number of people with us this morning and we're talking to lots of people we're hoping to bring more people together to actually do something I agree I think that report was excellent had really good rock so many years ago. It was and it was but it was right on the. I think I was right on the mark there were some excellent recommendations but I think this time we've got to figure out all of us how we come together and actually do something to make this change and I think that's out there as each of the states are different all all of the crushable systems are 50 actually criminal justice just 51 if you count the federal system that are out there they're not there and I don't have a specific you know justice system there's 51 different ones. You aren't talking to Representative Gerry Meaden from Texas who's been very instrumental in prison reform in Texas and Molly Baldwin the executive director of Rocha an organization that deals with keeping young people out of trouble and out of prison. We're going to take a short break and we're going to come back on this issue and I want to get your takes on the controversial three strikes plan here in Massachusetts. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show from eighty nine point seven WGBH

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violent Yeah violent have to have some violence involve a drug charge or a gun charge or something like that it would be Monday. You know like loitering or littering or something like that. Where do you stand on that Molly. Well I would I would hope that the state would take the time to look at the data that we're starting to review with the Pew Charitable Trust data project before we took another step in expanding the number of people going to prison. There are as you can imagine wildly different views about the number of people this would affect. And I think that's exactly the point if we're going to if we want people to change our behavior if we want to keep our community safer then we have to do a better job so it would be really. I think it would be unwise at this point not to take the opportunity to look at the data and review that information. Personally I think our laws work in such a way that people who commit really violent offenses are already in a law they're already in place and where do you stand on the charge that this would also have a racial component to it that it would unfairly or overly target

the minority community in Massachusetts and all it cost a country there's just disproportionate number of people of color in prison so it just continues to expand that and poor people so it is proportionate. I mean it's we were just talking of the data revenue Jean Rivers who's talking about you know the number of murders committed in this country in the preponderance of them that are black on black and in so out of whack with the population in general it's positive a frightening rate but the disproportionate numbers of people of color in prisons compared to the rest of the population in our community and so it it it just tends to keep expanding. Something also that doesn't work and is really unjust again. But if more people minorities are committing a disproportionate number of the crimes he's in they go hand in hand with them. More time in prison for that particular incident but as an overall question I think it's something we have to look at in our society. Were you were you won three strikes with Texas doesn't have it. Yeah.

So I've got a lot to get a lot of I wasn't always this guy was going to get. We got a lot of stuff in that event but we don't don't have the three strikes piece and it has not been a major issue for us I mean there's places where our judges and juries we have trust and faith. You know our judges and juries and what they look at is the individuals within the system and what you do with that individual and there are times when you know longer sentences are available certainly to them and having done crime more than once for a second a third time is yes there's a tendency to get them near the range that the higher range of a sentence than they would for the first time offender but we just we don't do it and I don't really have any opinion on the Massachusetts law. Basically I come as I said to talk to each state. Specifically about what their state does and their recommendations when we did it in Texas we did not do a lot of sentencing changes when we did the things we did it we did it with budgetary things we did it within the system and we did it with the programs and programming and support

for the operations of the various divisions that we had and that was where we found we had the maximum utilisation in effect of our funds where we could use both the idea of doing things that were smart on crime and doing things that made fiscal stance for the state also you know I want to go back to an issue that both of you have raised and you know the cause as so much incarceration. Many crimes have a root in drug abuse alcohol abuse. Lot of people drink a lot of people use recreational drugs but this certain population when they do that it takes them to the next step they do something really stupid or they do something really criminal they drop the drink and drive and kill somebody or they get into a rage and they kill somebody either injure something it's it's most people who drink don't take it to that step to certain population does this. This also applies to sexual crimes. You know not every prisoner

in there for a sexual charge is is is a rapist by nature or a pedophile. But drugs alcohol can take you to the next level. How do you deal with that how that. I mean with that I mean you know this is this exhausted and I too I can't even I wouldn't guess of your hundred fifty four thousand people. How many of them are in there for those reasons. About 60 percent are what we would wow. Not violent. Probably lower level crimes that we have we have a lot of what we call our state jails which are basically up to two year sentences. We have 20 something thousand that are in those those are in many cases those are the drug related offenses in the lower level offenses that the burglaries that may be associated with the drug legalization of those. So forget the programs in the prison I mean forget about those. Because you know that's actually it's hard for me to do that what about. But that's after you get to prison. What about before you know your group and you go around tapping people on the shoulder you go around you people up. I mean is that is that what we've really come

to in this part. We need to get to these people before they get to the point where we want to lock them up. So what we found really effective is kind of taking from evidence based practices around getting thinking differently so people behave differently and skills development and we've built an intervention model and I want to hear it doesn't matter in the beginning we just keep going. Topping on the shoulder would be a nice way to put it where you drag drag them in. So what we really do is go back to young people we've built an entire model based on relapse and over a long period of time so that we can keep engaging young people in till they start thinking differently and then behaving differently whatever other sources they need resources whether it's a detox or treatment we try it will take them over and over again and we found the key was instead of. There are many excellent programs for young people who are ready to make changes and that's fabulous but our kind of expertise and sort of study of our work is for the group who is not ready and we really track what young people do and what we do as staff members and use data to get better and

better getting them into experiences where those shifts can take place because otherwise we found ourselves waiting for them to have an awakening or epiphany. We weren't so good at that. They were ending up in prison or hurting themselves or someone else and so we said you know what we're going to figure this out. And it's not perfect but more often than not we're able to stay in it with young people long enough that they can begin to make a shift and change and we study what it takes to do that and are getting better doing that and we think that shows a lot of promise happens to be very consistent with criminal justice evidence based practices and substance abuse evidence based practices. And that's an important sector for everyone that's listening that says use the evidence use facts use the truth. And if you use the truth write correctly you in fact can have better policies and better programs and oh by the way it will probably cost us a state and US the community less money if that person is is doing something within the community.

That may be less say a probation related or Juvenile Probation or even for pre-sentence the type things that maybe they may be doing that are in fact interventions. And of course if you can intervene even earlier that's one thing we look at is how do you intervene in the schools or intervene with youth programs. How do you intervene with the very young. One of the great things are statisticians that do studies looking at where do things like unwed mothers and in. Child Protective Services calls and school dropouts and where do they all occur and if you plotted them on a map of every place in the state of Massachusetts you would see a great overlap with all the issue with the statistic that says this is where people come from our go to when they leave for or go back from prison or jail. And it's an overlap there that says somewhere along the line if we do some other things within our society that are not just criminal justice related not just educators related but our change related for the

entire society that it's some place you can have those impacts. One thing this is happening in is a is a positive force is the crime rates are actually down nationally. Yeah the drivers for the last 18 20 years and it's everywhere it's not just here it's everywhere and the question that I asked to challenge everybody to is why is that happening. What did we do and what do we continue to do and where should we be expecting to go with that crime rate so that what can we see in the future. I'm curious about Texas. Obviously you still have the there's lots of people who are curious about the IOU and some things I wonder about Texas you've I think executed for 72 people since the. Death penalty was reinstated in 1977 but if you give people the choice and they say this you know these five guys committed these five crimes and you said to the general population of Texas what should you do with them. Put him in a program or put him in jail. Most people to put him in jail. So I'm curious how the ex in this responded to this. Oh they responded just

just absolutely to what we were doing because I think they would I would disagree with you somewhat. He would tell them Well what did they do what was their cry they did. And if given a choice what would you rather do and for certain offenses and certain people they would say to you the same thing that the general public public has done it has done some great research on this. That said would you follow what Texas did and take program matic things for a low level violent offenders which is again what terms we are using and and say to them you can make a difference by doing things program magically with the population support that. And it's an overwhelmingly Republicans and Democrats like 83 85 86 percent favorable for that question that says they would do what we did. And it would take that into consideration now should we say and in my most liberal friends will agree with me that there are people there you're looking at one right over here. We need to be locked up for a long time to keep us safe.

There are people there that are just so dangerous and have done so she is things and in that that are not subject to ready for change. People we've got doesn't matter if they are ready for change we're not ready to have you know there's a penalty that they pay for the nature of what they've done. So you know there are people that we all of one of the great things I had when I started this process was have my think tank that was my more liberal think tank when I got up before they're actually admit that they are people we oughta lock them up for the long times because you started what I saw when we did all things in Texas when I had a liberal and a conservative think tank. And when they came out and started talking about stuff they agreed on 80 percent of what they were talking about it was the things that were on the straight stream the death penalties in regulation or decriminalization of drugs for example you throw out there different extremes. But if you took the 80 percent the middle. There was a lot of agreement. I made them work together. You know legislation to come up with the ideas we did specifically in one or two of the major pieces we did in 2007 that they

had that they were a major part of and that they had to agree on if they did agree we did do it you know it's interesting because we are a liberal state we're a blue state and yet we don't have this yet really close to this. Not we're not I don't think we're near it and I think that's part of the tragedy were hoping to encourage that we hope that we get to bring people together a little bit and that's why we asked the chairman to come and go look retiree Naginata to testify before the State House. I should get over there once a few years ago. But but the the thing really is she's so right is that there are there are states who have followed us now. You could start picking out of Georgia just past their major criminal justice reform. You data mostly in both houses of their legislature. So I'm a governor of South Carolina just some wonderful things led by a Democratic state Senator North Carolina did some major things on their system without Florida Florida say need some help. There are times I look forward to where we have been working with them. No

comment on whether Kentucky did some great things Ohio it's a purchase Ohio Ohio did and if you look at me you say well what are they what's standard and most of them you would say were red states it is a little easier for us who Texas is never going to be known as a soft on crime state. And so what we say it it's you know our our public knows that what we're saying is coming from the standpoint of we're trying to make sure that everybody's safe and we're trying to do smart and intelligent things that make good use by the way. From that point on Texas being tough on crime a lot of states are backing away from the death penalty any chance. TEXAS Well no. All right I got my answer there. Representative Jerry Madden from Texas and Molly Baldwin executive director of Rocha. Thanks so much for coming in today and we thank you. All right up next a Boston public school assignment system and one parent's personal horror story that you have to hear to believe. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show from eighty nine point seven. WGBH

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innovation is seen in Massachusetts are a ballsy venture for the WGBH ex-con Amee reported Friday during MORNING EDITION. The partnership between X company dot com and eighty nine point seven. Welcome back to this into the Emily Rooney show for several years now parents in Boston have spoken clearly and loudly. No one is satisfied with the Boston Public Schools current school assignment process. The system is a complicated compromise between the desire the parents have for a walk to schools while at the same time the city wants to address historic inequities in schools as a consequence families who might live across the street from their school of choice are enrolled in a school halfway across the city. We have one parent in studio who has a personal and this is the only way to describe it a horror story. He found the process so confusing and disorganized it drove him and his family out of Boston all together. And joining me here in the studio is Shawn

Sykes. Welcome Shawn. Thank you Emily thank you for having me. Take us through this two years ago you were living in Jamaica Plain. Corrigan we loved it. It was a great area. But I you know we started to think about school needs we were actually looking for Q2. There's actually different levels of kindergarten and our needs work a two. So in about late 2010 we started with the big Open House the Boston Public Schools have an open house at the ready Louis Arena. We visited a lot of the schools in the West Zone talked to a lot of the staff a lot of the community a lot of the parents that were there. And you know really found out that there were a lot of great schools in Boston. You know not just in our neighborhood but just in general throughout the West Zone. And then you know right after that you know I started thinking about OK what or what were some of the things we were looking for and the open house the actual school open house season started shortly after that where you know they open up the school for a couple hours to meet with the administrators you can ask questions you can learn

about school a little bit more. And my way though was that there's a good doobies you went to all those things. Oh yes she's my wife. I should I should preface this by saying my wife I did a lot of the work and which is why she's not here because she feels very emotional. So she went and visited 12 schools I think there's about 20 schools or so in the West Zone that offer a K2 program. And she visited 12 of them. You know she spent an hour and a half to two hours you know the full open house time and going to maybe multiple schools one day. So. That that went on for a few months and then in January she you know we registered our daughter for school and we put all 12 schools on a list. You know you rank them according to you know which ones you want. You prefer. And we had you know in our top three are kind of where you're going to be assigned wait lists. And one of them was kind of a tough to get school we knew that it was a long shot so you know. But but four of the 12 were actually within our walks. So we actually have some sort of preference for those. And you know we didn't hear anything for

months we registered and then come March. Actually a Saturday March 19th we got our initial letter that said our daughter was on a sign after the first round lottery. And my wife actually broke down and cried it was. You know she invested so much in it and to find out that we didn't know where our daughter was going to school come September was a little bit tough for so. But we finally settled down and we got to work with the system we got to figure out what we're going to do. And come Monday we there's the West Zone Resource Center where you can go and talk about your school needs and it can help you plan your next steps. We went there doors open Monday morning to figure out what can we do now. You know we don't have a. Spot and I think they're actually surprised that we didn't have a spot with 12 schools on our list it doesn't seem you know yet. Yeah not too many people probably list 12 schools Exactly. So that was kind of a surprise and it's also a surprise that we got our letter in the mail on

Saturday versus you know everyone getting their letter all at once it leads to kind of some you know gave us a head start on getting to the resource center and start the next round of process. So we got her wait list numbers after the first round in our top three schools and they were pretty bad they were. Thank you. Yeah they were really bad. But one of our schools that was in our walk zone was reasonable she probably wouldn't get in but we don't want to take her off just in case the waitlist. Yes correct. So so then we were told that you know we would basically need to register for the next round of lottery and we would keep our wait list spot at our number one school. So it sounded. We weren't sure. So in order to verify. My wife e-mailed. Denise Snyder the senior director of enrollment services and we see you here. I should just interrupt say we did hear from Denise today who said she was very sympathetic to what happened to the to you and your wife and knows that his team is actively examining the school assignment process she

says My heart goes out to them they did everything right their case is atypical but it happens enough to be a real problem. And I you know I totally understand her feelings and everyone that we dealt with really was trying to help us all along the way it's not you know it's no fault of you know. All right so why don't you email her to make sure you are on the wait list then you reapply. We re-applied and so she just reassured us that we did the right thing. And then. Come May 23rd we called the West's own resource center to kind of get what happened in a second results and she was still on a sign. But what we found was our top school her wait list number had dropped six spots. And it's not it's not atypical to drop a couple spots. So if some siblings come in you know reference but six spots was very very significant. Yeah. So they said they would do just that. Yeah they would put us back at the original weightless spot and.

OK so now it's May. I'm kind of hurrying along here. Yeah you. You still don't have know where your child is going in the fall so you've gone through these two rounds of the school assignment process. You got no nothing definite You got one lame spot. Yeah exactly. I'm giving the summary you know now what. So you know then we you know just kind of let it slide we put one more school on the list for the third round and found out you know after checking back early June to figure if she's moved at all because maybe some people have taken their child off a wait list found out that she was totally taken off that first wait list we wanted to keep. Yeah. So this was a total surprise and it would only happen if we gave some documentation to say take us off but we never gave that. So they you know you know they were very sympathetic to the problems that were having and they reinstated us for the number 34 spot on the school. So then we just let it slide you know they they obviously there were obvious spots in the city they weren't on our

12 schools. But when you apply for schooling from Jimmy you see the West Zone could be assigned you to the east. So you know now there are some citywide schools where from any zone you can go but the west so it includes the Roslindale Jamaica Plain West Roxbury those kind of schools Dorchester Roxbury. So there's quite a few schools that we can go to so she could be going to school at the back end of the West Roxbury I can be quite a long ride announced June. Now in June we just kind of said you know I don't trust the system anymore I don't want to go through a lottery again because you know each time something strange has happened to us and we had enough and we said we're just going to get out of the city. You know it's we thought about it at some point we figured we would go through one year of kindergarden see how Clara adjusted to school and how the community was and you know if it didn't work out maybe we think about moving but this kind of just pushed that up and just said you know let's just get out here. We could either pay a lot of money for a

private school or we could just use some money and get into a single family home and. Did you ever try to pull any strings call the mayor's office. Well I did I did e-mail the mayor's office of the website you know just kind of laying out just this general problem and actually never heard back so you know you don't really use e-mail at the mayor's office. Yeah. Well live and learn so. So then I don't understand how this is even legal. I mean if they have to put your kid into a school can't you say he didn't qualify for any school what do they get away with that. Well I mean there are definitely spots available at schools and there are probably reasons why there are spots available at some schools you know the eventual issue would get assigned and we found out in late September after we had already moved we got a letter that said that she had been accepted to one of the schools that was on her wait list so would that have been acceptable to that school if it was one of the ones we put on after like the first round of results so it would have been acceptable. But you know

now now that we would have had to driven her to school when at kindergarten had to drive anyway but I don't think I don't believe so I can't I don't know specifically where the school was but after being you know now after being in a new location and seeing the school there it's you know it wasn't acceptable. You know thinking back on it. But so tell me what happened when you moved to Arlington. Well so you know we accepted you know we signed a purchase and sales on a home and. That day I think my wife went up to the school and said can I register my daughter for going to govern even though I don't really have this address yet. It's in the process and they said yes you know please come on in and you know we also are two income family and we need some aftercare after school and we talked to the actress care aftercare program at the school and they said that you know she's probably not going to get in but you know she said you don't have you can apply. Yeah you can apply you can be on the wait list and you know if something comes up then you'll be and so they were very accommodating and apparently that school had a lot of children coming in. A lot of

kindergartners coming in that year so they actually opened up another class to accommodate the amount of children so it's kind of a different world in a way. And did you I mean there's not no question about which school in Arlington they don't have a school assignment process you just go to the one that's closest to your house. Correct they have districts that are assigned and then they're doing some redistricting now but you definitely go to kind of the one that's closest to you in some ways. So what would you do if you were in this you know the seat of Denise niner and other people are trying to work this out I mean. You know they're trying to do the right thing for a lot of people who you know may not live in the best neighborhoods and have access to the best schools they want to meet want to equalize things. This is been such a problem for the city of Boston for all these decades what would you do. That's a that's a really tough question because you know they really have their hands full. Geez. I'm sorry. Yeah I got a blank on and I mean it's I don't know

how you fix it I think just it would have made it a little bit better for us if it is if this system was a little bit more transparent. And you know there's is it is I don't believe that everything's a lottery. There's no such thing. Well I mean if we can just be put back on at number 30 for you know after the fact I mean if it's really truly kind of like a computer system where it assigns things but then you can actually change it as you go along that seems a little bit difficult. And you know some people try to play the lottery system but there's there's no understanding of really how it works you know you get a general idea I would say everybody needs to be assigned in the first round that's what I would say it sounds like it may be chaotic and there's going to a lot of changes by the end of the year but I would make that you know if I were in charge of this that's what I would say. Well I would also say that you know if you have a better lottery number and you have you know your top three schools you probably will get into one of those schools and then be on the wait lists for two other schools. So you know I take some shots. Yeah but it takes a life for me. Yeah yeah so I mean and so they're at a higher weight list than for

perhaps you know coming in. So that could also affect my results. Your wife went back to Jamaica Plain for the first time just last month after two years how was that. Oh it was it was pretty bittersweet I mean we would love the area it's great to play in his crate. Yeah it's a vibrant community very integrated and yeah different restaurants and food in neighborhoods in enclaves and yeah we figured. I mean that's the one thing we miss about it. So you know it is a more homogenous let's face it. Exactly you know you've hit the nail on the head I mean a lot of gaps and things like that there. Yeah. We really enjoyed having our daughter be around like you know even though you know she was curious about different things I mean being around that kind of diversity was really beneficial for so. But it is beginning of this we are asking people to give us their experiences and not the seans like Susan. Arlington parent moved to Jamaica Plain because the school bus the school assignment system was just so utterly chaotic You just couldn't take any more but we would also like to

hear your stories you can e-mail us at Emily at WGBH dot org. Emily at WGBH Dunn or so you think you're entrenched now. Shawn in the final day yeah so that's why it's taken so long to kind of get my story out there because you know we were in the middle of a movie and our daughter's doing wonderfully there I mean we you know I was just going to negotiate so yeah so this is actually you know even though it seems so long ago when I was putting the dates to it I mean it really wasn't that long ago you know. But it seems as just a long process it takes up so much of your life for six months that it feels like years. Yeah I mean the college application process is that complicated because you know when you get that letter in the mail you're either in or you're out or on that wait list you have period. Exactly and you can except someplace else or you know had your bits but as I say I think they gotta come to a system where everybody knows something in the first round. Yeah I think that would definitely help. Think I don't know how many schools that you were interested in so they let you into one waitlisted you won one. They would know that they can have some cross data that would have been explanatory.

All right well that's our advice to Denise Knight or she's a snitch. If you didn't have anything bad to say about them they were doing their best. They were doing alright Shawn Sykes Thanks for being with us. Thank you for having me. All right we're going be back tomorrow at noon after legendary detective novelist Robert passed away. Fans of his Spencer novels wanted more. Now they have it. We'll talk with Ace Atkins about the challenge of finding your voices a writer when that voice words and stay with us now for that Kelly Crossley Show coming up next. She will be talking about. OK let me see if I can get this right. Our tease and pencil sharpening. I didn't get it right or teach an old pencil sharpening actually a promo sounds great. You were there right. It's not a joke stick around to find out what the point of it is OK. And tonight I'm on television show greater Boston Harvard and MIT are free on line college level courses under a joint family really shows a production of WGBH radio on the web at WGBH Boston Public Radio and Emily Rooney.