PowerPoint; Environmental Racism, Juvenile Justice

Production and broadcast of PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is PowerPoint, an Information Age clearinghouse for issues affecting the African -American community, the nation, and the world. And now, PowerPoints Kenneth Walker. Ever wonder what's in the water you're drinking or why you wake up sometimes with a splitting headache? And what about that strange cloud coming from the industrial park near your home? The one that gave your kids a rash while they were playing outside. This time on PowerPoint, we're going to talk about environmental racism and how some corporations are using residential areas populated by blacks, Native Americans, and other minorities as dumping grounds for toxic waste. Our guests during this hour of PowerPoint include former U .S. Department of Energy

Secretary Hazel O 'Leary, Washington Post Environmental Issues writer Gary Lee and from Atlanta, Dr. Robert Boulard, Director of the Environmental Justice Center at Clark Atlanta University. The question is this, could the land you're living on be killing you? You can join in the search for answers by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. Call a friend and tell them PowerPoints on the air. But first, PowerPoint news with Verna Avery Brown. This is PowerPoint, news and information to empower the community. I'm Verna Avery Brown. It's been 15 years since then President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill making the third Monday in January a national holiday

to honor the late Martin Luther King, Jr. And three years later, the holiday was first observed January 20, 1986 and has been celebrated ever since. Tomorrow, Vice President Al Gore will deliver remarks at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and attend a reethling ceremony at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. An African -American police officer from Dade County, Florida, who was pepper sprayed and wrestled to the ground by white Orlando deputies for what he calls bogus charges, is insisting on his day in court. The attorney for Major Aaron Campbell says the only thing his client is guilty of is DWB, or driving while black, and Campbell has refused an offer for a plea bargain. First of all, it'll prove he's not guilty. Secondly, it will expose to the public the absolutely intolerable, racist policies of the Sheriff's Department in stopping people simply because of their minority status and then trying to develop if they have admitted in pre -trial and enhance that into some justification for affecting a search. I've had people call me for all over the

country that have been through there and stopped submitted to searches. Of course, new drugs found is nothing and just sent on their way, it's okay, because the interviews justify the means and the minds of some people. An analysis last summer by the Orlando Sentinel shows that the Orange County Drug Squad pulls over black motorists six and a half times more frequently than whites. PowerPoint news spoke with the Reverend Rufus Lee Wood, who was also stopped and searched on the Florida Turnpike by the same deputy as he and another minister headed to the Baptist estate convention in Orlando. He wanted me to get out of the car and at that point I was really afraid because being blind, I didn't know exactly what was going to take place and what was going to go down because you think of all the other things that have taken place. You think about the right -and -the -king incident, you think about the matter screen incident and so many others. So I really was afraid at that point and I didn't know what was going to take place and at that point, he has tricks to get out of the car, so I did it reluctantly, but I did. And they proceeded to search us, by that time the

office was on the scene, and the one just shouted, you know, on a very rude tone of voice to keep hands in there, and I couldn't really believe that all this was taking place and being blind, that made it even worse. Reverend Rufus Lee Wood says the experience connected him with his ancestors and the struggles they must have fought and gave him pause as we observed the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Here's how I run it, that even today that we still have to deal with the things that Dr. King, those social evils that he stood for, that he stood up and fought for eradicate racism and poverty and war, those were the three things that I felt he strived to eradicate and even now today, racism is still alive and well in America and it's bad. If Major Aaron Campbell is acquitted, Attorney James Cheney Mason says, they intend to file a civil rights lawsuit against Deputy Richard Mekowicz and the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

He estimates it would take at least 50 plaintiffs to file a class action lawsuit. An effort to withhold funding from Republican candidates who refused to ban so -called partial birth abortions was squashed Saturday by the Republican National Committee. The action takes place about a week prior to the 25th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. From Los Angeles, Cheryl Flowers reports on how the right to choose an abortion has affected the lives of women of color in this country. This week reproductive rights advocates will commemorate the 25th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision which allowed women the right to legal abortion, something once not an option for women like Tony Guy of Planned Parenthood in San Francisco. I'm actually the survivor of an illegal abortion that I had in 1966. My mother made some arrangements and we took a drive down to Tijuana and went into a very ram shackled looking building. I remember thinking to myself that the porch was going to fall off. So it was a real risk and speaking to my mother later, I realized she was holding her breath the whole time too. She didn't know if she was going to bring back a

daughter or a corpse. Although African -American women are often not as visible or vocal in the pro -choice debate, Cynthia Carey Grant of the California Abortion Rights Action Lake says that it's an issue of particular significance. We are people who have as a legacy no reproductive freedom. The African -American women's experience and slavery was forced motherhood. So as an African -American woman, I participate in the reproductive rights movement as an individual who believes in civil rights and civil liberty and has that as my legacy. How can I expect to be treated as an equal and to be free as a person regardless of gender or anything else? If I don't have the right to have dominion over my own body and to choose when whether and with whom I will become a parent. For PowerPoint news, I'm Cheryl Flowers. In northern Africa, 26 civilians were killed at a fake roadblock in Algeria.

According to reports motorists were forced to follow a trail where they were stopped and had their throats slit. The violence is believed to be the result of conflicts between Islamist rebels and government forces. Cuba Gooding, the man behind the well -worn phrase, show me the money, isn't going to take all the money for his next film project. A murder of crows is the first film for his production company. Gooding and his longtime pal Derek Bros, both of whom are 30 years old, are partners. Their company is called Good Bro. And finally, the man who made classics out of the cuts, Huru Man, little by little and messing with the kids, has died. Blues Harmonica Legend, Junior Wells, who teamed up with guitarist muddy waters and buddy guy, ended a five -month struggle with lymphoma last Thursday. For PowerPoint news and information, I'm Verna Avery Brown. Welcome back, I'm Kenneth Walker.

30 years ago, the Gulf Oil Company decided to use some land it owned in Houston for new development. The land, sanatops and abandoned oil pits and, according to recently discovered documents, Gulf Oil covered up the toxic hazards and marketed the land for Negro residential and commercial development. Over the last three decades, the predominantly black residents of the site called Kennedy Heights have suffered a collection of illnesses including cancer, tumors, painful rashes and lupus. Kennedy Heights is just one of a growing number of places where it appears that corporations have directly targeted poor non -white communities for toxic waste sites and other forms of pollution. Some call this environmental racism and they're seeking environmental justice. And that's our focus this are. We want to hear about the fight for environmental justice in your community. What's going on? What's being done? You can get in on this conversation by calling our toll free hotline

at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255 to help launch our discussion this hour. We're pleased to have here in our studio, former energy secretary Hazel O 'Leary and Washington Post reporter Gary Lee whose environmental reporting goes all the way back to the early 80s. And on the phone from Atlanta, we have Professor Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, an author of a number of books on the subject including dumping in Dixie, race, class and environmental quality. Everyone, welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much. Secretary O 'Leary, let's start with you. How did you first become involved in this subject? Well, I've been in and out of the energy business for about 25 years now. The most important thing for me, I think, to talk about is the effort on the part of a

very few active environmentalist from minority communities, some 10 to 12 to 11 years ago. Gary can probably speak about this with great more authority, to raise in the consciousness of, first of all, the people who run our governments, that this was a particularly important issue. And by saying this is, and that is to ensure that people who are living in poor and minority communities don't experience a disproportionate impact of environmental degradation because of their inability to participate in the forums and because of their inability to speak out. Credit goes to Bill Clinton and certainly to Vice President Al Gore for the passage of this federal executive order that at least puts all federal agencies on notice that they have some requirements going forward to ensure that all communities and people in communities are involved. But I think the bigger problem for us today is to look back at what has happened and try to correct wrongs. And that's the the thesis

of Kennedy Heights. It could also be the thesis of Love Canal, but tonight we're focusing on communities with people of color and for people. And I think it's important to have this discussion and especially to ask folks to look at what's happening in their communities and to get mobilized to ask the right questions and to get some answers. Since the Clinton administration's executive order actually was the most important move in this area in a federal administration ever, I think, how did it play out? What was the effect of this executive order to all the federal agencies to begin to pay attention to this kind of thing? Well, I'm very comfortable talking about the agency that I had the honor to head for some for for four years. The Department of Energy, of course, has a large environmental history of its own having operated for 50 years the weapons production sites for this nation. In some 34 states, the one thing I was clear of in that job is the first thing we had not done as a

federal government was to give the neighbors living nearby our communities enough information about what was going on so they could even participate and what was then and what will be for the next 35 years a very expensive cleanup. So we got busy right away to do the kinds of things that should have been done years ago and that is to arm people with information which had to do from our perspective with declassifying information for which any number of people got a lot of eat but more importantly translating that information into English so real people can understand it and ensuring that there were community -based advisory committees engaged in understanding and debating what went on with respect to their water, their land and even the air with respect to the kinds of emissions that they could expect. And so what we did I think was tried to empower the people in the community and one of the ways we made certain that they were empowered and I'm so happy to hear our colleague from Clark, Clark Atlanta was to ensure that there was enough money so that people in communities of color and low income communities

could hire their own experts to advise them and that to me is really the key to empowerment being certain that you have your experts because on the other side with big government or big business you know we will come to the table loaded with expertise with a pocketbook relatively heavy to fight these issues. Absolutely Professor Bullard, what give us the best working definition of environmental racism? Yes, environmental racism refers to any environmental policy practice or directive that differentially affects or disadvantages what they intended or unintended individuals groups or communities based on racial color. Environmental racism basically is a form of injustice that is reinforced by government legal, economic, political and military institutions. The environmental justice definition and environmental justice was not discovered by government. It was basically dealt with at the grassroots by organizations communities

that basically said they're not going to take any more, being dumped on, being poisoned, the kids being somehow affected by playing outside on toxic dumps, being poisoned with lead and housing in terms of paint, so that it was not something that grew out of government initiatives, it basically came out of communities and basically the origins of the movement came, the National Movement in 1983 in Warren County North Carolina. After this company illegally dumped oil that was contaminated with PCBs along the road, the governor decided it needed a place to put this stuff, they put it in a black county, I wanted to pour it in the state and people gathered and galvanized and said this is environmental racism and that's when really the issue started to bubble up from the grassroots and trickle all the way up to the White House with President Clinton finding that executive order. What's your best guess about how widespread it is? In terms of environmental racism, it is a national phenomenon, it is a global phenomenon. We found

that it is occurring in terms of housing, in terms of lead paint, we've gotten lead out of gasoline but we haven't got the lead out of housing and the kids that are being poisoned with lead right now, they mostly low -income kids and their children of color. If you talk about transportation, highways and freeways run through the path of least resistance, oftentimes cutting through low -income communities and communities of color. If you talk about petrochemical plants, oil refineries, garbage dump, everybody produces garbage but everybody doesn't have to live next to a garbage dump. You know, a lot of people forget that in 1968, Martin Luther King went to Memphis, Tennessee on an environmental justice mission, striking garbage workers and if you don't believe garbage is an environmental issue, you let the garbage workers go on strike. So this stuff is widespread and it is really pervasive and I think communities are saying now that it's time to address a lot of these problems that have been ignored for many years and something is being done but

there are still problems that exist that need to be addressed. Well, we want to get to those in just a second but Gary, you've been reporting on this subject for quite a long time. Is this really an issue of race or is it really one of class people with no money and does it matter? Well, there are those who contend that it is not an issue of race. The initial studies that were done on the issue proved or certainly set out to prove that it was communities of color, African -American and Latino, that were most negatively impacted by the placement of polluting facilities, plants or otherwise. Of course, a lot of corporations took Umbridge to that and of course, the reason that they did take Umbridge is because they realized that if that could be proven, then they would have to pay quite a bit and they responded by saying no, it is not really communities of color and came back with their own studies which showed that in many cases it's low income white neighborhoods

that are as badly if not worse affected by placement of polluting facilities. And in the in the ensuing period, it's turned out that in some cases that is true. In my opinion, it doesn't matter. A lot of the low income neighborhoods which are negatively impacted are black neighborhoods, some of them are Latino neighborhoods. In any case, they are disadvantaged people who are negatively affected. So the splitting of hairs really, I think, sort of obfuscates the main point. And that main point is that disadvantaged people all over the country are quite negatively impacted by this tendency to place facilities in certain neighborhoods and in certain areas. Our number here at PowerPoint is 1 -800 -989 -8255. 1 -800 -989 -8255. Our focus this hour is environmental

racism and how to get environmental justice. Secretary O 'Leary, through some of these new programs that you established like giving voice, giving information to local communities, trying to ensure that local communities were involved in decisions about what were going to happen to energy department facilities. How would you characterize the change in community involvement these days as say when you before you became energy secretary on these kinds of issues? Well, I think it's very hard to declare your own personal victory after only four years. So I don't want to do that. But I do want to focus on some of the leaders. I saw blossom and bloom and speak with power and authority on issues in their own communities. And I'm thinking especially of a group of citizen advocates, many of whom were African -Americans

who made themselves a forceful pressure at our Savannah Riverside. As a matter of fact, I'm pleased to say that the leader of that advisory committee received an environmental waters. The environmental activists are very given by a very elite environmental organization just this last June. But I really wanted to come back to the question of economics because issues of citing ugly, dangerous, health affecting facilities has always had to do with economics. When you go in, you've got to get a permit to be cited. If you're trying to do it easily and in the least cost way, often communities are picked to selected where you believe there will be no involvement, therefore nobody pushing hard enough. In our own communities, often the economics of whether a site which some people consider to be detrimental to the community and maybe detrimental

to the community has people on both sides of the issue because you see jobs and opportunity and you may have leadership in that community who may be elected from a minority community being in favor of a potentially toxic site because it brings with the jobs. So I don't believe we can ever ignore the economic issue and I believe it's extremely important to understand what the economic benefits are in communities where there's dissension to try and understand for the long term whether maybe 150 jobs and maybe a thousand jobs in construction are worth a long term grief that may come from damage or detriment to health and the welfare of the community. I think you saw some of this tension between economic and environmental and your reporting in Cancer Alley in Louisiana. I did see that for instance I would see in Cancer Alley for

those who are not familiar with it is essentially the strip of land between the Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So -called Cancer Alley because of the high concentration of chemical facilities and the high rates of cancer that have arisen in that area. And what I saw in a couple of visits that I made to look into some cases down there is that in fact in a lot of the small towns the chemical facility that's located near the town might employ a majority of the people including people of color in that town. And so the people who make their living from the facility are of course going to think twice about jumping up and saying that environmental racism has been committed here even if they believe that it has. They're worried about their jobs too. So quite often people were very divided, local people were very divided, but I did want to agree with Secretary

O 'Leary that this issue has given rise to a whole group of people of color all over the country, grassroots leaders, names that don't appear much in the news. In all parts of the country people who were not involved much in politics before but became very actively involved and to my amazement this was an issue that really wasn't being addressed in any significant way by major environmental groups in the country. And I think that these local grassroots leaders realized that that the major environmental groups were talking more about endangered species and other issues. And so those people should be congratulated from mobilizing themselves around this issue. I'm Kenneth Walker, you're listening to PowerPoint. We're talking about environmental racism, environmental justice. We're talking with former energy secretary Hazel O 'Leary,

journalist Gary Lee and professor Robert Bullard at Clark Atlanta University. Our number here at PowerPoint is 1 -800 -989 -8255. It's 1 -800 -989 -8255. We're going to go to the phones now. We have Lenny, out of station W -U -M -V -M Boston. Welcome. Hello. Welcome to PowerPoint. Thank you. I had a comment to make. When you first open you show you mention about Gulf oil dumping in someplace in Texas. That's right. And to my knowledge that practice continues because I worked for a company in Boston, Kamal and Farms, who was affiliated with Gulf oil. And as far as I know, talking to one of the engineers who was supervising one of those sites, he pointed out a number of occasions where that practice was continuing. Maybe there were not sites targeted at minority communities, or say, but I know that as he mentioned, he was quite angry about that. That these sites were being

covered up with contaminated soil from oil spills that the corporation owns at those particular stations. Do you know if these were legal or illegal dumping sites, that is to say whether the dumper had a license to do this? The dumpers, those sites where the accident or spills occurred were belonged to Kamal and Farms, which sold Gulf oil. And the site where that contaminated soil was being was properties that were owned by Gulf oil corporation and were sold to developers for building residential housing. Well, thank you for pointing that out to us. Let's try to get some information about what people like you can do about things like this. Thank you so much. Professor Bullard, for individuals who have

a suspicion at least, if not absolute proof that something like this might be going on in their communities, what's the best thing to begin to do? Well, I think the first thing is to really make sure that communities really do a good reconnaissance of what's happening in their communities. Neighborhood on watch, not just for crime, but also in terms of midnight dumping. And also in the fact that some communities, you know, the Kennedy Heights situation in Houston is not unique. You know, we have many black love canals, whether it's in Fort Valley, Georgia, or whether it's in their many communities that have black communities, that subdivisions that have been built on top of waste dumps. I think you have to really press the issue. You have to get your own experts, toxicologists and hydrologists and physicians and lawyers and another experts. You really can't trust the government to do everything for you. You really have to really get involved and become active and really become environmentally literate. Most, most people in poor communities, certainly minority

poor communities, don't begin to have the resources for the kind of elaborate test and technical, technically skilled people you just mentioned. How did they get that? Well, that's not necessarily the case because of the fact that the environmental justice movement has really grown matured and have been able to set up collaborations across the board. Our center, for example, at Clark Atlantic University, is one of four environmental justice centers in the country and it's not by accident that all four of them are located at historically by colleges and universities. And our center provides resources, technical assistance, and we do assist communities in working on all kinds of issues. We don't file lawsuits, but we do provide testimony. And one of the major, one of the first environmental justice lawsuits that was won in court was won this past May in Louisiana. We're, we're, we're, we're, we're holding that thought Professor Bullard we're coming up on 29 minutes after the hour. Our topic this hour is Environmental Racism, Environmental Justice. This

discussion on PowerPoint will continue when we come back. Internet services for PowerPoint are provided by World African Network, offering news, information, sports and entertainment for African and African -American communities through Internet, broadband and new media technologies. The web address is www .world .africanet .com PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. Welcome back to

PowerPoint, I'm Kenneth Walker. Our focus this hour in environmental racism, environmental justice. We're talking with former Energy Secretary Hazel O 'Leary, journalist Gary Lee, Professor Robert Bullard of Clark Atlanta University on the subject. Our number here at PowerPoint is 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. Professor Bullard, you were trying to finish your point, I think, about the first environmental racism suit having been settled, I think you said last May. You have haven't been decided by judges, not settled in court. What was the result? The judges basically decided that there was racial discrimination in the citing process of the proposals to put a uranium enrichment plant in the middle of these two little black communities in Louisiana and they denied the permit. In this particular situation, this community in Northwest Louisiana, it's an all -black community. They didn't have a lot of resources, but they were able to organize, mobilize and get assistance from various organizations, from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, from Sierra Club, League of Defense Fund,

from our center and from various other groups. And we were able to put together an excellent case, and we won in court. And we basically proved that there is a such thing as environmental discrimination and the judges, basically denied the permit. I gather there about what, 19 of these suits or in various stages of litigation around the country, so far? That's correct. That's correct. And the fact is that there, many cases have not yet come to court. In some cases, there have been a number that have been settled. The problem is that in two often these judges really don't understand, don't recognize environmental racism as being, you know, real. And we have to really have a tight case and you have to have the facts. Okay, we're going to take another call here from David, with station WHYY in Philadelphia. Welcome to PowerPoint, David. I think we lost David there. And

while we set up another call there, Gary, you had talked earlier about new development in this kind of litigation using civil rights laws to challenge some of these environmental policies and practices. Tell us more about that. Right. The practice is to take Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and to seek to prove that there was discriminatory action on those grounds and to fight federal cases. And one of the reasons why this approach is being followed is because in many of the cases, the local courts and sometimes the state courts are not reacting very sensitively. In fact, you find as is predictable that the local state officials are sometimes in cahoots with the polluting facilities and sometimes it's necessary to go to a higher federal authority as we saw happening quite a bit in the civil rights movement. Now,

on that point, I should say that one of the reasons why the Kennedy Heights case, which you've made, we've all made some reference to here this evening, is important. That's the Houston facility where golf oil dumped and there's an ongoing lawsuit is that it has been shown by court documents as you pointed out that the golf oil market at the facility for quote -unquote Negro housing development, which goes quite clearly to prove the point that it was a racial activity, not just an economic one. And that would be an important president, an important case to win. And that's why a lot of attention is being focused on that. And that would tie into the civil rights angle as an important one that's being pursued in these cases. Was it your experience, Secretary O 'Leary, when

you were at energy that sometimes often perhaps local officials were resistant to some of these complaints? That was a very diplomatic term to be used. Yeah, I can remember the first several site -specific community advisory committees that we set up. The mayors living in those communities came to me and subsequently to the White House to complain that they had lost their avenue to get to the Secretary of Energy. And my response was, hey, no, we've just put another few chairs at the table so that everyone's voice can be heard. So, yes, resistance feeling that there was something to be lost in terms of taxes and also that their opportunity to be heard singularly. I was something they jealously guarded. I wanted, though, to go back to the gentleman caller from Boston and use the example he raised with respect to golf, not knowing those circumstances. I certainly don't want to elude

that golf has done anything wrong, but I want to remind all of us that the Superfund Act placed every corporate and federal governmental entity under requirement to adhere to the environmental laws. And if you don't, you're subject to criminal action. Now, when I worked in the private sector, believe you me, this got my attention. Right. And even in my last job as Secretary of Energy, I wasn't about to underfund cleanup because I was afraid I could be criminally liable. So, I agree with Gary that using federal jurisdiction is extremely important and the Civil Rights Act is available. But also, these corporations can be challenged and they can be challenged for their action criminally. How? If they have been shoved - If you're the guy sitting in Boston, you need to - Well, this guy sitting in Boston needs to talk to the person at golf who talked to him. It requires some dramatic courage on the people who are working

in an organization because we're talking about whistle blowing, but we're also talking about the integrity of the key leadership, because those are the people who ought to make certain that each facility is accountable. And what one needs is an environmental plan to put the weight on facility managers not to break the law and let them know if they break the law, they can go to jail. The other thing is that their incomes and their assets are at risk. That's some heavy duty stuff that gets your attention. Let's go to the phones now. We have Kenneth, out of station WEAA in Baltimore. Welcome to PowerPoint Kenneth. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question for Dr. Bullard. Go right ahead. Dr. Bullard, do you think the real problem with environmental justice or environmental racism is that it could possibly be a social problem? Associated with environmental issues or is the problem primarily environmental? Well, if you look at the, I guess, the genesis of this whole question of where

people live, where people work, where people play, and residential segregation. You know, I wrote a book called Residential Apontide, American Legacy. A lot of the fighting issues oftentimes can be traced to where people live and property values. If you talk about people's health, there are some people that are health that is devalued. If you talk about what a community is valued and what is compatible land use, there are some people who believe that garbage is compatible land use with black communities. So if you talk about the intersection between race, class, and geography, yes, it is a social problem, but ultimately it's a problem of health. And whether in fact a worker of color and safe workplace is also environmental justice issue, black people still have the dirtiest job and low paying jobs. We still live in communities where air quality is dirtier. You know, we are concentrated in major cities

and areas where air pollution is high. So if you talk about the social cost involved with having kids being hospitalized because of land or hospitalized because of asthma, an asthma affects African -American children and three to five times greater than for white children. Asma is the leading cause of childhood hospitalization, not gunshot wounds, not dry by shooting. So it is a social problem and there are costs associated with social problems. Thanks so much Kenneth for the call and the question. We now go to Jerry with Jerry with station WHY Wine Philadelphia. Welcome to PowerPoint, Jerry. Right. I am an attorney for a community group in Chester, Pennsylvania. I met Dr. Bullard about a year or two years ago on that. And I wanted to inform Dr. Bullard that within the past two weeks we won a significant victory in the court of appeals in which the court of appeals said for the

first time that communities can sue for environmental racism without having to prove discriminatory intent. One of the big problems as Dr. Bullard knows in the past has been that you have to prove intent. Well, we don't no longer have to prove intent where the defendant has received any money from the federal government. Jerry, do you cite the case for me? Can you style the case? Sure. It's a Chester residence concern for quality living versus Scythe. Scythe is the commissioner of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Well, congratulations. And I'm pleased to have that fact. Tell us a little bit about that case, Jerry. Chester is a community of about 40 ,000, 15 miles south of Philadelphia, 70 % African -American, very poor, a lot of unemployment. In the last 10 years, the state has issued five waste permits

totaling about two million tons of waste per year. And in the rest of the county, which is 500 ,000 people, practically all white, a issued two permits for a total of 1400 tons a year. So the amount of concentration of waste facilities in Chester just been overwhelming. And we brought this suit against the state saying that the way they issue permits has had the effect of discriminating. The state, by the way, said the following when we get an application, we don't even bother to look at the nature of the community. We don't know anything about the its composition. It's asking the composition. Sure. Sure. Well, just imagine that they would even admit that. Well, I guess that's the weakest defense is better than no defense at all. I want to follow up and ask another question. Go right ahead, Secretary. Did you work pro bono? What were you

funding? What were you doing with the public interest law center? Yeah. And of Philadelphia, all I do is environmental work. And I represent communities who are having trouble with respect to environmental pollution, you know, who live in close proximity to industrial and waste plants. Super. Can you tell me your full name? Sure. The name is Boulder, B -A -L -T -E -R. And with the public interest law center. It's interesting that in Saturdays, Philadelphia, in Choira, which is the big paper in Philadelphia, there was a great editorial saying the people of Chester are right and the state better do something about it. Yeah. Well, you know, congratulations, Jerry. Yeah. We've been watching and waiting and praying, and you know our position. Oh, sure. Yeah. I think that there are many Chesters just waiting to happen in terms of

victories like that. And now every community has the power to do it. Yes. It was just a matter of time. Right. Well, Jerry, Jerry, I imagine their public interest groups like yours in a lot of places around the country. Unfortunately not. Unfortunately not. Well, since that's the case, we were talking just before you called on what the average person, the average citizen who suspects or believes there's some environmental problem going on here. What are some of the first steps they can take? Well, becoming knowledgeable about their problem, of course, is important. One of the things I would recommend if they don't know any lawyers about it, that they go to the bar association and present the bar association in their county with the nature of the problem and ask the bar association to provide pro bono lawyers to help them overcome their environmental problem. I know that in many areas that really works. The big problem is that the community itself is not aware

of the amount of facilities that may be available to them. And how we overcome that degree of ignorance is a $64 ,000 question. But it's really something that has to happen in Chester, for instance, four and a half years ago. They had no idea what to do about anything. But they had some idea they wanted to oppose a new permit that was issued. And they were able to get a little bit in a newspaper. And I read it in the newspaper and we're running it down. Jerry, I want to thank you so much for your call and all your valuable information. And we hope to hear you again on PowerPoint. Okay, and Bob, yeah, hope to see you soon. Yeah, okay. Thank you so much. Yeah, let me just add another point. Go right ahead. People can really understand how litigation oftentimes come out of the struggle of organizing. There are very few lawsuits that have been successful

where there was not the community -based organized entity at the grassroots. And in Chester, the folks who were organized, they were mobilized, and they were angered, they were mad, and they were able to put together a good team. The same thing happened in Louisiana in terms of forest growth and center springs, up in Flint, Michigan, in Escambia, in Pensacola. And the similar kind of thing is happening now in Convent, Louisiana, where this Japanese company, Shintag, wants to put a polyvinyl chloride plant in the middle of this little black community that already has 12 plants and a 60 % unemployment. So unemployment doesn't always follow the industries. People get promised jobs, but there's a difference between the promise of jobs and jobs. I just wanted to add the point in what's regards to the question of what the public can do, what an individual can do about this. I have to, as a reporter, I've got to believe that the press can play

a positive role, and the positive role the press can play is helping to bring some of these cases to light. We've talked about a few, some of them have been reported, hundreds have probably not been reported. And I think that the public should feel an obligation to go to the newspapers and their communities and talk about it, talk the issue up. I think that this is an issue that environmental reporters across the country don't do enough writing about and should be encouraged to do more about. Dr. Bullard, I'd like to ask you a question about the nature of these grassroots organizations and the communities that have been successful. Have there been individuals in leadership who have had a background in environmental protection, or have they been strong leaders who care and understand health issues or issues for families and people? Well, in many cases, and I've documented this in at least three books that are written, and in a directory of people of color groups, what we find is that in many cases you find groups and organizations that

are already in existence that work on housing, that may work on health care, may work on transportation. But somehow these organizations are being forced to deal with environmental issues. And a lot of times these groups don't have the information and don't have the training at hand, but are forced to do a little on -the -job training. They have really become experts out of their own survival. And as I said, we're seeing groups that have really come to life in the last 10 years to really start to protect that community, to start to really enhance the livability of communities. And we produced in 1994 -95 a people of color environmental groups directory where we look, where we profile these groups in the US, Mexico, and Canada. And we were able to document at least 500 groups from all across the country working on all kinds of issues. So it's a myth that environmental issues and environmentalism is something that is just white middle class, just

leisure and bird watching kind of a thing. So Dr. Bullard, how do people who want to get a copy of this list get it? Well, we have a webpage and - Give us your website. Oh, it's www .ejrc .cau .edu. That's the web address. And also if they want to get a hard copy and they're not, you know, people are not on the internet picking either colors or they can call us and we can send the copy of the directory free of charge. We'll right after we come back from our break, try to give you a phone number that you can call. So you get the hard copy for this information. Professor Bullard was giving and responded very excellent questions of former energy secretary O 'Leary, for which I'm grateful. This is PowerPoint. I'm Kenneth Walker. We're talking about environmental racism, environmental justice. Our conversation will continue when we come back. Still ahead on PowerPoint. Homicides are

dropping at a dramatic rate, but violence and death continue to threaten young people in many American communities. In our two of PowerPoint, youth violence and juvenile justice stay tuned for an important discussion. Oh. Welcome back to PowerPoint. I'm Kenneth Walker. Our discussion

this hour is environmental racism, environmental justice. You can get in on this discussion with Secretary Hazel O 'Leary, journalist Gary Lee and Professor Robert Bullard by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. Professor Bullard, you are going to give us the phone number where people who are interested in getting pamphlets written material can recall to have sent to them information about how they can learn more on this issue. Yes, that number of the environmental justice resource center at Clark Atlantic University is 404 -880 -6911. And for those of you who may not have had a chance to get it earlier, the website address is www .ejrc .cau .edu. Secretary O 'Leary, in response to Jerry's call from Philadelphia, you seem very excited about the appellate decision out there. What are the implications of an appellate decision that

racially discriminatory intent does not have to be proven in these cases any longer? Well, I used to practice law 25 years ago. I haven't done it in a, you know, I'm not practicing law here. But to remove a burden of proof as heavy as that puts you exactly where our colleague from Chester put us. And that is on the factual data. Let us use the facts standing bear -faced as they are. And I guess the court got a lot of help from the city folk themselves who admitted that they had never even looked at data, which might put them in a position to understand whether they were doing equity. So not to have to prove a mindset that starts out to say, I will discriminate against this group of people, I think is extremely important to come at the law from one side. And I understand that Gary has pointed out to us how important it is often to use the federal laws available in the Civil Rights Act where you do have to prove some intent or at least a pattern of discrimination. So I think we need all the legal tools we can get. Gary, in this age of

balancing the budget and declining revenue for domestic programs, where is the money going to come for either cleaning up these places, compensating people or relocating people away from unhealthy sites? Well, you put your nail on the question, which is worrying corporations, especially the chemical facilities and other polluting plants across the country. Where is the money going to come from? And in short, the answer to that is out of the pockets of the profits of some of those companies, that's their concern that they'll have to pay for those things. And beyond the question of cleaning up some of the facilities, cleaning up as many as possible, perhaps relocating some, there is the larger question of where will future facilities be located? Nobody wants them in their backyard. Certainly white neighborhoods don't want them and

it's clear that the neighbors of color don't either. So that is going to pose a problem for a lot of companies too. It already is beginning to pose one. We're going to try to go to the phones again. We have Tracy with station WUMV of Boston. Welcome to PowerPoint. Thank you. I want to thank Dr. Bullard and people like him for putting a name on environmental justice. I think issues like this have been going on for a long time and they haven't been named things like lead poisoning. So I think it's so important that we have a concept of what environmental racism is. My question relates to the future and I think it's really important now, you mentioned a bunch of court cases that are now in the process of litigation. And I think that's great. But I'm wondering what the future is. And if Dr. Bullard or others there see a time where we could get to a point where there might be settlements or other processes out of court where we can reach a solution that doesn't depend on litigation. Thank you so much Tracy for the question. Let's have our guests and starting with Dr. Bullard, give a crack at it. You know,

I think it's very important for people to understand that litigation lawsuits is just one strategy. And it's a small strategy in the arsenal of strategies that's being used by grassroots organizations all across this country. There have been many, you asked the question of where we go. In some cases there have been good neighbor agreements and settlements that have resulted in remedies that really go beyond what lawsuits would do. In the case of companies basically owning up to the fact that they are creating problems and really beginning to reduce the and minimize the amount of waste and the amount of emissions. Really talking about guaranteeing people's property, property values and having shut down agreements that with the community really feels that this is unsafe. They can come in and shut the industry down. We also have to deal with the fact that there are many environmental laws that are not

enforced equally across the board and Superfund for example. Superfund still, a national law journal study show that even in the implementation of Superfund minority communities get capped in terms of remediation versus why communities get cleaned up. And we're seeing too often right now, not something happened in the 60 but right now as I speak where there are many African American communities that have Superfund sites and the remedy is to cap them, fence them, wall them off as opposed to cleaning up this stuff and removing it from the middle of these communities. Those are issues that still have to be addressed and we're still grappling with governmental agencies to do the right thing. You should also know our listeners should that starting February 26th, the School of Social Work at Howard University is sponsoring their ad -haward, an environmental justice and community health seminar series to help launch it says to ultimately an environmental justice center ad -haward.

Let's go to the calls again. We have Maxine from station WEAA and Baltimore. Welcome to PowerPoint Maxine. Hello. Welcome to PowerPoint. Thank you very much for this opportunity. In my community in Baltimore, I live on Bradley Avenue between Park Hikes is a very low income neighborhood but I see that plant just happened to be there one day. The instruction went up and we wouldn't notify what was going to go up there then. After a while came all the dust we rallied in the community to see where the dust was coming from. It was always on the car, cars always on the screen and the summertime when you put your window nothing but dust and the city just made them put up a eight feet fence. And in the winter time that's all you see is dust blown all on your cause everywhere. It's like I feel powerless because I'm the only one

seem like I'm a trouble maker because I'm the only one that doesn't like it. Well, in the in the few moments we have left Maxine, let me try to get some answers for you from our guest about what you could do. I want to thank you for that call. Does anybody here have any suggestions for Maxine? Well, I think this is about Bullard. I think that one thing there are some remedies under the nuisance. And you have to give them to me in 15 seconds or less. If it is a nuisance you can, you know, file a agreement with the city in terms of a nuisance in terms of zoning. I'd like to share with the lady to talk to Larry Young who was recently deposed as Senator in Baltimore State Senator. He's an environmental guy. He'll help. He's got plenty of time. This is Secretary O 'Leary, Gary Lee, Professor Bullard. I want to thank you all for joining in this discussion. I'm Kenneth Walker and this is PowerPoint. If you want to communicate with us or share ideas, suggest stories or topics for the show right to PowerPoint. At post office box 4 -51385, Atlanta, Georgia 3

-1 -1 -4 -5. Or email us. The address is PowerPoint at worldafrican .com. That's one word worldafrican .com. I'm Kenneth Walker and this is PowerPoint. PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. This is PowerPoint, a production of Hicks and Associates. It's up to all of us to protect our young people from crime and violence. In the next hour of PowerPoint, we look at shared efforts by police and community organizations to take a big bite out of crime. Before it takes a bite out of our kids, stay tuned. There's more PowerPoint just ahead. The Gloss of Innocent Lives.

These are our children's lives. We're all true stories that happen somewhere in America. But what they all have in common is that the perpetrators of these crimes were old teenagers. While homicides statistics nationally are dropping off dramatically, innocent children and teenagers remain caught in the crossfire of the drug culture access to guns and cruel, thoughtless acts. What can be done? What can we do? This time on PowerPoint, we look at youth violence and juvenile justice and engage a panel of experts to talk about what's working and how communities can come together to end this continuing national crisis. Our guests this hour include Thomas Bowers, Field Director for the Children's Defense Funds, Black Community Crusade for Children, Jeffrey Canada, Author of Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun, and Director of the Readlin Center for Children and Families in New York City. We're also joined by Yasmin Cater, a Criminal Defense lawyer here in the Washington, D .C. area, and from Boston,

Massachusetts, Lieutenant Gary French, Commander of the Boston Police Department's Youth Violence Strike Force. Our search for answers and solutions begins in just a moment. And you can take part in the discussion by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. But first, PowerPoint news with Verna Avery Brown. This is a special edition of PowerPoint news and information to empower the community. I'm Verna Avery Brown. This segment of the news will be devoted entirely to the story of Lucretia Murray. Unlike the highly publicized case of the British O 'Pare who stood trial for the death of an infant, Lucretia Murray's case has received precious little national attention. Lucretia Murray, an 11 -year -old African -American girl in 1996, was tried and convicted twice for the murder of a two -year -old left at her parents' house for daycare. Murray is currently serving a

25 -year sentence at the Corsicanna home for juvenile offenders in Corsicanna, Texas. Prosecutor Gary Cobb based his case on information from a state medical examiner. Cobb and a team of prosecutors convinced two almost all white juries that Murray, who at 155 pounds and large for her age, stomped the baby so violently that she suffered injuries and later died from a split liver. And they did so with little evidence other than a pair of tennis shoes they say Murray wore during the attack. Barbara Taft isn't buying any of the prosecution's argument. Taft quit her job as a legal aide and founded the People of the Heart Foundation to help free Lucretia Murray. Now these tennis shoes she supposedly had on were three sizes too big for her and they were boys tennis shoes. But they were supposedly the quote -unquote murder weapon. Now the thing is this the police have been in that house went into that house that night and they have been in that house three separate times with a full forensic team and they have not found one microscopic dot of any evidence of any blood or any body fluids or any

hairs or any thing that would indicate that anything had happened in that house. Prosecutor Gary Cobb. No that's absolutely not true. In fact we have pictures when they went in that night showing those shoes in her bedroom. We believe that after she stopped on the child she kicked the shoes off into the bedroom. So those shoes have been examined by a crime lab by a ticket? Yes. And what's the result then? Well the crime lab didn't didn't reach any result. There were no external bleeding at all from this child and the injuries were internal that caused the. So the crime lab did not make a conclusion about the tennis shoes and the murder? The crime lab never looked at them in order to determine if they were the medical if they were the weapon that caused injuries. In fact the crime lab looked at photos the prosecution sent them of the shoes and the baby and in a letter from Juan Rojas of the state crime lab dated February 5th

1997. He says they could not testify that the shoes were related to the markings on J. Lebelton's body. That letter however was not allowed as evidence by Judge John Deats which meant the jury never knew of the state crime lab's position. But the jury did hear another medical examiner who was paid $2 ,500 by the prosecution and who testified that the shoes matched the markings on the baby's body. Defense lawyers provided one of the state's own medical examiners Dr. Linda Norton to refute the prosecution's medical experts testimony. There's pretty good indication that this child was probably battered and neglected in her home environment not at the Murray household. Well how could you make that distinction that it was one place versus the other? Well I say that she looks like a battered child making that assessment based on the fact that she is way off the growth chart in terms of her weight. In other words the child is

malnourished. That obviously is not something that occurred at the Murray household. She also is just simply covered with so many bruises that it's almost inconceivable for a single attack even if the attacker is a very strong man to produce that many visible bruises on a child during one single episode of assault. Dr. Norton, community activist and the defense suspect the boyfriend of the baby's mother and produced witnesses that testified seeing him manhandle the baby but prosecutors ruled out that scenario. Dr. Norton came up with a scenario that no one there's no one on the jury found believable and we didn't find believable. Okay now your scenario is that Lucretia Murray kicked the child Jela Belton to death but you're saying it's based on your medical examiner's report basically. Were there witnesses? No one actually saw her strike the child or if anybody saw her the only people who would have seen it would have been her

family members who were in the house at the time. Now what would Lucretia Murray's motive have been? I'm not sure she had any motive other than it looks like she just lost it. Just lost her temper with the child. Cretia's the sweetest child we got. Our L Murray, Lucretia's grandfather who was in the home on the day of her death. We talked with him about the prosecutor's claims that Lucretia has a history of violence. They don't have anything on her being violent at school. He said their records of her being in fights and stomping or kicking children. Oh they told. They have one little girl that was on the witness saying that Lucretia hit her on the arm and that was in a little game they was playing. Has she ever been expelled? No. Has she ever been arrested for anything? No. And is she violent around the house at all? Does she have a temper? Lucretia is 13 years old now and is serving her time at the course of Canada home for juveniles. PowerPoint caught up with her between classes. Are you learning a lot in school?

Yes sir. What's your favorite subject? History. History. Okay. What do you think you want to be when you grow up? A lawyer. A lawyer. Yes sir. Have you made any new friends there? Lucretia? Yes sir. Are you having any trouble getting along with any of the other girls there or any of the girls there? No ma 'am. What about letters? Have you received very many letters while you're there? Yes a lot. That is kind of their plan for me and they hear my story on the radio and they keep my head up and they keep praying and God will work it through. And have you written any of them back? Yes ma 'am. And what do you tell them? I'm afraid. Thank you for writing me and just keep praying for me and I'll make it through this heart prayer. We couldn't ask Lucretia about her case as Lucretia's defense attorney has filed a motion for a third trial and he hopes to have a response by April. For PowerPoint news and information, I'm Verna Avery

Brown. Welcome back to PowerPoint. I'm Kenneth Walker. Juvenile justice, the idea that children charged with crime should be treated differently from adults. That's some attempt should be made at rehabilitation and that children deserve a second chance. This idea of juvenile justice

is an American idea. One hundred years ago the United States became the first country to install a system of juvenile justice. Most other nations followed and even the United Nations has adopted basic rights that enshrine this difference in international law. While the United States led this progressive trend today it's now the leader perhaps the only country in a trend that goes completely in the opposite direction. A bill that's already passed the House of Representatives but awaiting further action by the full Congress would allow the children as young as thirteen. Be tried as adults, locked up with adults. This bill would also slash many of the federally supported juvenile crime prevention programs. Every state has adopted some mechanism for trying juveniles in adult courts. And at least forty -one states already have moved in recent years to make it easier to try children as adults. All this is happening at a time when crime

among juveniles actually is going down. Fewer than half of one percent of all juveniles are arrested for a violent crime and of that and of that. That's down twelve percent over the past two years yet while murders for example are down twenty percent. Since 1995 the coverage of murders on the major networks during the same period of time has gone up seven hundred twenty -one percent. So the politicians have jumped on the hottest button of crime especially juvenile crime with radical proposals to lock them up and throw away the key. The issue this hour on PowerPoint what do we do about juvenile crime? Are some children so violent, so immoral that the only reasonable solution is to write them off? Or are there programs and policies that work that keep kids out of crime or interventions that work successfully when they are at risk? We want to know what you think about juvenile crime. You can join this discussion by calling our toll -free hotline at 1 -800

-989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255 to help begin our discussion. We have here in our studio Thomas Bowers with the Black Community Crusade for Children. He has been catered a defense attorney in Washington familiar with the juvenile justice system. And joining us by phone are Jeffrey Canada who heads the Reedland Center for Children and Families in New York. And Lieutenant Gary French commander of the Boston Police Department's Youth Violence Strike Force. Everyone welcome to PowerPoint. Thank you. Thank you. Lieutenant French, let's start with you if we can. And Boston just witnessed a remarkable period of peace in juvenile crime for nearly two years until just last month. There had been no homicides among juveniles in Boston. This piece I understand was broken in December. What's going on in Boston? In Boston back in 1990, we were having a lot of problems. We had a very high rate of violent crime taking place in the city and the high rate of violent crime taking place among juvenile.

I murder a peak in that year. I think in 1990, 1991, 92, there was a citywide effort among all sorts of people. Religious leaders, community crime watch group schools, U -Center residents, hostels, academic institutions, and various individuals from the criminal justice agencies cut and vowed. But a lot of people started working on the issues. A lot of people started focusing on violent crime. And the fruits of all that work started paying dividends in the last few years. Well, how? Give us some of the details about how all these various groups and agencies come together and interact with the kids that actually led to this reduction in crime. In a lot of police departments, not a lot of communications taking place between the police department, the district attorney's office, probation parole, department use services,

corrections, ATF, DEA, FBI. The criminal justice agencies traditionally don't communicate very well. I think in Boston, we've really changed that. We have a lot of communication taking place. What we have to keep in mind is that a very, very small percentage of the kids are involved in the violent crime. In the city of Boston, we estimate less than 1 % of the kids are involved in the violent crime playing with guns, involved with stabbing and things like that. A very, very small percentage of the kids are involved in that. What happens is a lot of times we look at all kids, all young kids, as being involved in it. But 99 % of the kids are good kids that are doing the right thing, going to school, working part -time jobs. By communicating with the law enforcement agencies and with the community in general, we can get a good idea of who the problem kids are. Probation notes where they are, D -Y -S, notes where

they are. School teachers know who the kids who are acting out in school are. It's pretty much the same kids that are acting out no matter where they go in society and if the kids that we should focus our attention on. I also understand that there are churches and civic groups that have tried to or have established programs and places of refuge, if you will, for kids after school and maybe even nighttime basketball leagues. Is that true? That's true and I can't speak enough on that. We have a group called the Ten Point Coalition, which consists of the religious community that all came together and decided that they had to work on the outside of their churches. They couldn't just stay in their churches, had people come to their church. They had to go out into the community and work with the kids, they had to work with the families. A lot of the families need a lot of services and the Ten Point Coalition stepped in and they're providing that service. We have street workers who are youth workers who go into the city neighborhoods where the gangs are active and actually work with those kids trying to provide education, training and mentoring. We have

over 700 crime watch groups in the city of Boston. These are neighborhood residents who get together on a monthly basis and discuss the issues that are taking place in their particular neighborhoods. A lot of the schools in the city of Boston now have opened up this school after the normal school hours so they can have programs going there. We have youth centers that are very active. The community residents, a lot of times people who live in neighborhoods, they sort of look the other way, they don't take their roles and adult all that seriously. A lot of the residents now are starting to step forward and approach the kids who are out there in neighborhoods to say, hey, is that behavior really acceptable? That's not tolerated. Jasmine, I don't think anything like that seems to exist in this area where you're working as an attorney, is there? No, not in that kind of cohesive approach. One of the things that I read about the Boston program, and I want to commend you, sir, on the efforts that you've made, is not only is it coordination amongst law enforcement, but it's coordination that

goes beyond simply looking at how can we catch the bad kids doing what they're doing, but how can we prevent kids from getting into this system? And one of the most impressive points that I learned from reading an article about what was going on in Boston was that police officers were not just checking up on kids to see if they were violating their terms of their probation or violating their curfew, but they were checking in on them to make sure that they're doing all right. I don't doubt that there are individual police officers in this area or in other major urban cities who take that on themselves and make those efforts, but not in the kind of systemic approach that the Boston program from what I've read did. And I think that one of the things that comes out a theme from this approach is looking at children as ours, not looking at our children who are involved in some of the, in this violent crime or involved in neighborhoods or living neighborhoods where this is occurring as those who are others, those who are a lost generation. And if we learn to take responsibility and accept that we

have to, because those are our kids, then I think that that gives us the right approach. One of the things that I found so disappointing when I did some research on this topic for here in the District of Columbia was that that otherness has been an approach taken by many of our leaders and our African American leaders in 1991. Those are not our kids. Those are somebody else's kids. Exactly. Former Mayor Kelly in 1991 when writing, it was a press release that I read regarding a bill which was in front of the City Council of trying to lower the age for transferring juveniles to adults, talked about the lost generation. She talked about the counter culture. She talked about these kids as being beyond the help of the system. And in that same press release, she was frankly intellectually dishonest because she said that their parents gave up on them or could not cope. Our schools did not teach them, our social service and juvenile justice systems simply failed them and our national

government offered only neglect. So to have that kind of, I think, profound understanding of what's happened to our kids, but yet, and say, therefore, let's lock them up. Exactly. Thomas Bowers, how just how far outside the mainstream of political thought is this Boston experience proving to be, if the congressional legislation and the movement in the state has any indication, Boston just ain't on the planet. Well, first of all, this time it's Bowen and Bowen, I'm sure. That's okay. I think that what's happened in Boston is something that has replicated around the country. The sad part is that all we hear is the soundbites and the media is done. A wonderful job of talking about our young people as monsters in some case, monsters and re re -box. I think that we really have to take control and try to urge more community support of our children, but to ask ourselves individuals how many of us take the time to volunteer in our community,

at least one hour a day, or a couple hours a week, how many of us reach out to our children in our community, my volunteer and local church or community centers or schools. These are things that we have to take it upon ourselves and show the government that we believe in our children, even if you don't, but unless we take the opportunity to do so, then we're going to begin to hear more about legislation like Senate Bill 10, on which it's pending right now. And a lot of people in the community, a lot of people out there don't know about this important legislation. It's the Violent and Repetge of the All Fenders Act of 1997 and 1998. And this legislation is going to call for more young people to go through the adult criminal system, more young people to be housed in facilities with more adults. And this is frightening. This is frightening to me and to a lot of folks. I've heard some folks out of theory, I'm referred to this bill as a child rape opportunity act because when you have more young people in

the same facility as adults, we know. We know what's going to happen. We know what can happen to our children. So now it's time more than ever to stand up and let our voices be heard in this important legislation. Jeff Canada up in New York where we've heard a lot about the decreasing crime attributed to Mayor Giuliani's community policing effort. What's the situation with juveniles up there? Well, you know, one of the things that people don't realize when they hear about this big drop in crime in New York City was that this drop really started during the time with Mayor Dinkins. He passed something got it through our state legislator called the Safe Street Safe City Act which was named the Cops and Kids Act. And I'll tell you why it was named Cops and Kids and nobody likes to talk about this. The Mayor came up with a theory which has proven to be correct that if you increase policing and police in a new way, community policing getting police involved in a community interacting with people and at the same time had a safe

place for children to be to get those kids off the streets. And we started something in New York City called Beacon Schools. We opened up these schools 365 days a year, open late evenings, 11 o 'clock, 12 o 'clock every night. He said crime would fall and you know what? It fell and it fell dramatically but all people talk about here in New York City is the police part of this. We made the biggest investment in children 30 million dollars during Dinkins administration that Beacon School program is still going on today and it was designed to be in communities where our children were the most at risk. You know part of the problem is if you go anywhere in America and you stop 45 18 year olds or 17 year olds, some of those kids are going to have things on their person be involved in things that will get them arrested. And our communities where kids are hanging out all the time on a street corn with nothing to do, no place to go. And they're an easy target for anybody including the police come by simply do a sweet pick people

up. Lots of kids get caught up in the system not because they've done anything wrong but because they've had no other options, no place to go, no adults to be a role model and provide some guidance. So one of the things that people need to understand. Yes, we've had a real big drop in juvenile crime in New York City, but it's not been just because of the police. It's had a lot to do because a lot of people got involved making sure young people had a place to go after school evenings and weekends. Our focus this hour is juvenile justice juvenile crime. I'm Kenneth Walker to get involved in this discussion about juvenile justice in your community. We want you to call our toll free hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. Yes, I think you had a point you wanted to make there. I did and I think what Mr. Canada has expressed and what we've seen through the Boston program is effectively a full court press. And that's what we've got to do. If we want to start addressing issues of just the massive type of

social problems that are facing our communities and in turn facing our children. And the other thing that we need to do when we are dealing with persons who are putting forth the type of legislation that we've seen described here is ask them to be honest. Let's be honest. Let's have a frank discussion. Let's call a spade a spade and that's being honest shows this. You have certain presumptions of law law which say that minors have a lesser capability for making important decisions. This is based upon both legal tenants as well as psychological theory. Piaget who was a cognitive development specialist talked about four stages of development of children, sensory motor skills, pre -operational thought, concrete operational thought, and then finally when you're around 11 years old you start getting to formal operations between 11 to 15. And this is generalized theory and it's different for every child but that's when you

start to start to get your feet wet into what's determined to be adult type thinking. Only then are you able to have the type of maturity begin to get the tools to have the maturity and therefore the law reflects that. This philosophy that you are talking about that is traditionally underlay the juvenile justice philosophy is deteriorating. If this bill that we've been talking about Mr. Bowen and others have mentioned is any indication people don't want to hear about these undeveloped immature human beings. They want to get them out of here. But then that's when children who are under the ages of 18 say if you're going to treat how you're going to treat us as children in one area of the law and as adults and another. If you're under 18 you can't make an enforceable bargain, you can't make a contract, you cannot vote, you cannot buy cigarettes or alcohol, and you can't marry without parental consent. Yet a 15 year old can't serve on a jury, maybe tried by a jury, maybe sentenced to life in prison or death by that jury.

That's not fair, it's not honest and it's not consistent. I think that we need to ask people to be honest and when they're making these arguments we need to put up front. First of all, the whole concept of trying children as adults in terms of the idea one that'll be a deterrent is proven not to work. Residivism rates go down when children go into juvenile court much higher than they do if you put the child into a adult court. Children locked up at an early age are going to fear imprisonment less and therefore they're going to be less easily deterred. Let's ask Lieutenant French here if in your opinion these so -called get tough policies we're seeing represented by the Bill in Congress. Would they complement or contradict the main thrust of what the Boston program is trying to achieve? I think it's very important to note that there's a certain amount of kids, there are some youth out there. The unit that I work in is youth found strike force and we deal with people with changes of 14 and 24.

We look at that as the years when the kids join up with gangs and stop running with gangs and they stop playing with guns. And out of every gang you only have one. Lieutenant French, hold that thought. I want to come back to you right after our break. We're coming up on 29 minutes after the hour. We're talking about juvenile justice, juvenile crime. Our number is 1 -800 -989 -8255. Our discussion will continue here on PowerPoint when we come back. Internet services for PowerPoint are provided by World African Network offering news, information, sports and entertainment for African and African -American communities through Internet, broadband and new media technologies. The web address is www .world .africannet .com PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. Welcome back to PowerPoint. I'm Kenneth Walker. We're

talking with Thomas Bowen with the Children's Defense Fund, Jeff Canada, a child activist and author in New York City. Lieutenant Gary French with the Boston Police Department, Yasmin Cater, an attorney here in Washington area. Lieutenant French, we were talking to you about I think the point you were beginning to make was that there are some kids who you think need to be targeted. But the overall question once again was how does the so -called get tough mentality seem to be prevalent in the country, contradict or compliment what Boston is trying to do? I believe it compliments what we're trying to do because in a sense, when we look at the victims and the suspects and homicides, if we look at the backgrounds, if they've been arrested once, in 75 % of the victims of homicides have been arrested once, they've averaged 9 .4 arraiments. 75 % of the victims of homicide have been arrested once. An average of 9 .4 times. Now, we

did a study with the County School of Government over at Harvard. We went over all the victims of homicides between the ages of 16 and 24 and we did the same thing with the suspects who want to get arrested. And it comes both the victims in the suspects are repeat, high profile offenders. They've been through the system numerous times. The victims, 9 .4 arraiments, the suspects, 9 .7 arraiments. These are kids that have been in and out of the system, apparently society has failed them. But the high profile repeat offenders that are known to the DA's, known to D .Y .S., known to parole the court, causing problems in neighborhoods, problems in the schools, to people that are destroying some of the university neighborhoods. These are the people and we can go right down to less than 1 % of them. And we have to target those kids and try to break away the kids that we can provide education, training, mentoring, and jobs to. Jobs

is a key component that a lot of these kids just because they're hanging with a gang doesn't mean that they deserve to be incarcerated. But there are certain individuals that push the violence level so high in our neighborhoods that we have to take them off the street. Reverend Jean, Reverend from the Ten Point Coalition, he talks about prison ministries and some of these kids do, in fact, need prison ministries. But the majority of the kids we feel we can work with by getting them into programs, hooking them up with usennis, and getting them involved in training and jobs program. We can save a lot of these kids, but some of them are just very, very violent kids. Speaking of that violence, Jeff Canada, you write in your book, Fist Stick Knife Gun. You quote a Center for Disease Control study in 1991 that claims that one in 25 high school students carries a gun. What possible hope can we have of stemming juvenile violence with this awful presence of firearms among our young people? It's a real

issue, and there are a couple of things that I think are important for the listeners to understand. One of the reasons we got into this mess with these guns, have to do with some bad legislation that was passed around this country, trying to declare the war on drugs and everybody wanted to get really tough on that. And I watched because adults started getting this very long terms in jail, mandatory minimum sentences. I watched them lure children into the sale of drugs, and so much of this violence is around drugs. Drug transactions, drug deals going bad, fighting over turf, and innocent bystanders being shot. So that's one of the things that I worry about. Here's some legislation again that's coming down the pike to make things supposedly better, and it could end up like the legislation did in the late 60s and early 70s actually making things worse. So that's one issue we have to deal with. The other issue is that it seems to me these laws which the Congress is contemplating passing, getting tough in quotes on juveniles and trying them as adults really are unfair because it targets only

part of the problem. We have a huge industry in this country, the handgun industry, which is selling these guns to children. They know how children are getting these guns and purchasing them. When you look at who buy these cheap Saturday night specials, it's mostly always children, and yet these guns are pumped into our cities and record numbers and people are making huge profits off of this. We really need to take on the gun lobby in America and make sure that they really start be acting more responsible. You know, I tell people when my child was 15, I barely trusted him with the lawn mower. I should have to think of a 15 year old having a handgun and yet our kids are advertised too, they get these handguns in their hands, and I think that's a huge trouble. I think we're focusing all of this on the children. We ought to be looking at the handgun industry. Let me just make the last point on this issue. We are having a significant decrease in murders and

homicides across this nation, which means we're doing something right. We should be funding what's going on and things like the 10 point coalition and Boston, what Eugene Rivers is doing, like the Peacum schools, they're working. It's actually dropping. Instead of doing that, we're going off on a totally separate tangent, funding something which all the evidence suggests is not going to really reduce crime and violence at all among young people. I think it's a bad law and we need to really do what we can to stop it. Let's get our listeners involved in this discussion. We're going to Ricky out of station W -E -A -A. Excuse me, and Baltimore, welcome to PowerPoint Ricky. How are you, sir? Wonderful. Yeah, I was listening and it was my feeling that over the past 30 years there has been a deliberate effort, covert effort on the part of our government to undermine subvert and to compromise the infrastructure of families and communities across the nations and therefore make them dysfunctional. That is one of the center particularly African -American community. That's one of the central problems of our youth. Once we establish a means of preparing the infrastructure or the structure where that kids

have to live under, meaning their home environment, I think that would take a lot out of the violence. So how do we do that? How do we do that, Ricky? How can we do that? There's a lot of ways we can do that. We can start, and I know people hate to hear about programs, but because of our historical perfect deprivation and because what we've experienced in terms of the now of opportunity, the programs are necessary. We need programs where responsible parenting can be taught. Parents need to be rehabilitated, assisted financially, emotionally, and psychologically towards the endeavor of responsible parenting. That's one main and methods by which teens could come into contact with positive exposure to a value system, so to speak. Thank you so much, Ricky, for the comments. I think that Ricky makes a very good point in looking at this analysis and looking at some of the motivations behind this legislation and other legislations. I mean, I come back to my mantra which is getting

old, but let's be honest. It is a lot easier to get reelected if you are the congressperson. If you are the politician who says, I'm going to get tough on crime, we need to do something about this crime. Crime is bad. If you play to those easy sound bites, and it's not a deep analysis, it's not a hard analysis, it's a quick one, and you sound good. But there's another side. There's a harder question, and I think that you can't divorce any discussion about criminal punishment from race in this country. You can't divorce it from the issue of poverty in this country. And when you're talking about what children of color accused of crimes, there are no people who are easier to stop on and get reelected by stomping on than that group of people. It works. It works very well. But I think what works equally well is a sentiment that I learned while growing up. But when somebody comes to

you, you come back to them strong, you come back in the same way. Let's talk about some sound bites. 17 -year -old Demiko Watkins got seven to 25 years as charged as an adult for being a lookout in a pizza robbery. He was stabbed to death by seven adults in an Ohio prison. We've got sound bites of our own on the other side. I have seen many children preventively detained in the DC jail, and then their cases ultimately dropped. But burning that time when they're preventively detained and they're not in school, there are no programs for juveniles who are charged as adults in the DC jail. Nothing. When I'm talking about programs and educational programs, you can't even get your GED. You can't do anything but sit there. Nothing. So, let's be honest, and let's talk about what's really behind this bill. I think in attacking, in addition to attacking the illogical nature of what's being promoted, in the immoral nature of what's being promoted, let's talk about the motivations behind it. Let's go to the phones. We have Barry with station KTSU out of Houston,

Texas. Welcome to PowerPoint, Barry. KTSU, before I get to my point is, I'm all broken up that juveniles who commit crimes can get their GED by bars. Even nice if they stayed in high school, wouldn't it? The question I have is this. I support this bill in Congress, and I also think that the panel is looking at this, the solution from the back end. The solution is to stop these producing kids at risk, not telling everybody else their response goes to go start some community program. The solution is what? Repeat that again, Barry. The solution is for to stop the irresponsible degenerates, masquerading his parents, stop producing at risk kids, even if it means sterilization. Even if it means what? Sterealization. Sterealization. What is a teenage pregnancy and out of wedlock birth? What is the cause of the problem? Let's give our guests a chance to chew on that a little bit, Tom. I think I want to go back to that. Well, you know, however extreme this Barry's suggestion might be about mandatory sterilization and all that, the reality is that in a lot of communities,

even in a lot of black communities, that people feel held hostage by a lot of violent crime, which is why the politicians' game seems to be working. I agree with you 100%. The problem is that this is not a solution. It's not as if suddenly young people who were 13, 14, 15, 16 would sit around and say, well, you know, if change the federal laws, we better start acting differently. That is not what's going to happen from this. This is a law that that children are going to get caught up in and are necessarily damaged. And I think that our whole history as a nation has said that we understand children should have some different rights than adults in terms of criminal justice issues. It's simply not going to work. It's an answer that makes you feel good. Like I've done something about it, but in the end, it produces nothing but broken and damaged children in the long run. And I think that this is Yasum Kater talking again, and I think that, you

know, I respect the caller's sentiment. I respect the desire not to be soft on crime, but I think we need to redefine what is soft and what is hard. I think that you can call this very, the approach that I'm advocating, very hard on crime and being very hard on kids. And part of the reason it's hard is because it's a lot more complex than, you know, sterilizing people or locking them up for life. But it's giving children a reason, giving them the respect that they deserve and starting to pay attention to them who have been neglected by, I agree with the caller, their parents. But in turn, by society at large, and then investing in them and saying, we expect more of you, you deserve more. And we expect that you will deliver it. And I think what we've seen from New York, what we've seen from Boston, is that that works. Yeah, I agree with Yasum. I think we have to increase the self -esteem of some of these young

kids. This much mortal life that hang out in the corner is a future form and we have to sort of encourage them. And we can do that by working with them, working with the religious community, working with the neighborhoods, working with the different schools and the youth centers. We have to really give them hope for a future. But I do want to reemphasize that there are some kids out there that are extremely dangerous. That cause serious, serious problems in the neighborhood responsible for the lives of the violence that take place. But it's a very, very small percentage of the kids. Lieutenant French, how do you begin to identify kids who are beyond the kind of help you guys up in Boston are trying to offer? We sat down with probation. We sat down with the Papua New Services. We sat down with Reverend Rivers in the Ten Point Coalition. We sat down with the schools. We sat down with youth workers. We sat down with corrections. We brought everybody to the table. And we looked at an area and we said this area is experiencing a huge increase in the level of violence. We have to do

something. We started looking at the kids who hung in that area. And then we went right into that and we told the kids not only did the police do it, but the religious community did it to street workers. Did everybody win into those neighborhoods and said, look, the level of violence here is unacceptable. If the violence continues, we're going to come at you with a focused, aggressive, pleasing effort to try to take some of you violent kids off the street. And if you're involved in the violence, if you're playing with the guns, we're going to focus on you. We're very frank with them. And Lieutenant French, my understanding is you also spent some money. You also hired kids who used to be in some of these gangs to turn around and start working with the kids who were still out there on the street. You can't just go in there. It has to be a carrot and a stick approach. You can't go in there with the stick and say, well, we're going to clean this area up. You have to offer them alternatives and that's what we did. It was done through the street workers program in the city of Boston. We got a lot of jobs for the kids. The kids wanted to get off the corner to stop pumping

crack cocaine on the corners. We would try to offer them jobs. We would try to build their self -esteem. The ten point coalition would set up mentoring programs, training jobs, building up the self -esteem. They could either take the carrot, take the stick, but the kids who remained on the corner shooting the guns, robbing people, terrorizing the neighborhoods, destroying the city neighborhoods totally. They were the kids that we had to focus on as police department. We had to keep our word to the kids. If you needed help, if you needed services, we would provide that. If you didn't take that help, if you didn't take those services, we're going to be dealing with you. We're going to the phones again. We have Phil from Philadelphia affiliate, WHYY. Welcome to PowerPoint, Phil. Thank you very much. Pleasure to talk to you. It's a wonderful program and it's very enlightening. Thank you. Well, my pleasure, believe me. I'm in the car phone and been listening for about half an hour. A couple of comments. One to Mr. Cam. It's really not really important to me whether it's Mayor Dinkins or Mayor Giuliani

who's gotten the crime down for juvenile. I was just glad to see it's down. But credit, no matter what, it's great. I haven't heard the woman's name was on your program. It was very smart, but they remarked about the 15 -year -olds that are getting sentenced to death or it's not fair that they're being tried as adults. I mean, you only tried as adults for her in this crime. It's not like you just go out and kill somebody for the first time. It seems to me that you had to do something. It's like you worked your way up to a horrendous crime in order to get there. Well, sir, I appreciate your comment on my intellect and I'm sure that that goes both ways. But it's not just murders that children are charges for adults. For example, here in the District of Columbia, you can also be charges an adult for burglary. You can be charges an adult for armed robbery. You could be charges an adult for assault with intent to commit burglary or assault with intent to commit armed robbery. So I think that it's important again that I understand that a lot of the focus that what we've heard

about are homicides and our rapes. But there's other types of crimes that children are getting charged for adults. So Phil, you should know that a majority, according to the statistics that I've been reading this week, a majority of the kids tried as adults in America are being tried for nonviolent crimes. Well, it just seems to me, and I don't mean to, and I said this to your screener, I don't mean to throw back because I'm not old enough to be beyond the angry crowd. But it just seems to me that if you had, I mean, we were talking earlier about people, you know, the schools were open to midnight or places there for kids to go. And I think that that's a very good point, and it's something that needs to be encouraged and needs to be

not only encouraged, but needs to be taught and enforced. But what do we have now? And if we have kids who don't have that structure at home, are we going to, is our solution to detain them, or is our solution to try to give a very complicated and costly full court press to saving them? Phil, we're coming up on 29, 49 minutes after the hour, and I want to thank you for your call, your comments and your questions, and hope you'll keep listening to PowerPoint. As I said, we're coming up on 49 minutes after the hour. We're talking with Thomas Bowen, with the Children's Defense Fund, Jeff Canada, and author and children's activist in New York City, Lieutenant Gary French, with the Boston Police Department Defense Attorney, Yasmin Cater, here in Washington, D .C. I'm Kenneth Walker, our discussion on PowerPoint will continue when we come back. Be sure to join us next week when PowerPoint talks

to African American astronaut Major Mike Anderson from Outer Space, aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. It's going to be an exciting historic program that you won't want to miss. Welcome back to PowerPoint. I'm Kenneth Walker. Our focus

this hour is juvenile crime, juvenile justice. What's going on in your community? Give us a call, let us know on our toll -free hotline, which is 1 -800 -989 -8255. We're going to go to O -Lod in Outer Station, W -E -A -A in Baltimore. Welcome to PowerPoint. Good evening. First of all, I said, first of all, I'd like to say that the program that the gentlemen are talking about, I feel real good about those programs, I'd like to... Which programs are these? Well, I believe it was a police officer talking about some programs and Boston somewhere. One point I'd like to make is not recently had a chance to watch a videotape of President Nixon talking to Hoover. And on this tape, Nixon is telling Hoover to put the drugs into the city. Now, this is a real tape. This

is not actors, right? Well, I can't recall that I've ever seen such a tape. Well, Taiwan Powell's FBI agent, he has a tape, right? You can purchase it if you ever go to one of his presentations. All right, assume that tape exists. Then what do you draw from that in terms of our discussion? Well, I'm surprised you asked me that. After watching something like that, the President of the United States telling somebody to put drugs into the neighborhood, I mean, drugs have been coming in here since Vietnam. You know, it's no secret. And then we have the CIA thing going down right now. So I'm saying, hey, you got to take some action against the people that are up on the top, as it was just picking on people down the bottom who are actually really victims. And they're also victimizing other people because of their circumstances.

A lot, you know, let's have our panel take a crack at that. I want to thank you for the call. The comment and the question, Lieutenant French, the question of drugs, the saturation of some of the most addictive drugs known to history within these urban communities. What aspect of your program in Boston deals with that and how do you do it? Well, one of the things that happened in Boston about five years ago is we decentralized the drug control unit. When we talk about large quantities of drugs, most of the people that are dealing in those large quantities are involved in the violence that are taking place on neighborhoods. Where the violence comes in is on the street corner when you have a 17 -year -old that's hustling four or five jumps from his mouth and sell it on the street. And he's running into some rivals turf and a gun battle erupts. And then we have a 17 -year -old dead and we have retaliation to be expected. I think we have to look at the street level sales of narcotics as being very

dangerous not only to the kids but to the residents who live in that area. It's very important to try to address that on the street level at the street level. These are the kids that are killing each other over the drugs. Where the drugs are coming in and how they get into the city, that's for someone at a much different level than for a local police. But I think from our level we want to look at what's causing the violence and the violence is surrounded around the drug trade. Kenneth, tonight this is Jeff in New York. I want to just talk about this drug thing for a second because a new study was just released came out about two weeks ago that looked at the relationship between alcohol and drugs and the prisoners in the United States and found that 80 % of the prisoners had used drugs a week before they had gotten arrested sometime within that week and reported drugs as being part of the reason they felt they were in jail. I think it's a huge issue but I think that people missed the point and they really start concentrating only on heroin and cocaine. And they missed the impact

that alcohol in particular the way they market malt liquor and stuff like that to these young people and how many of them used this alcohol while they're engaged in criminal activity. I think we really need to focus on that. And in particular our boys, my new book called Reaching Up for Manhood talks about boys and how we have to get at the boys because they're the ones who are ending up doing the murders, ending up in jail that record number. And we need to do something to get these boys turned around and refocused on positive things and connected to jobs and work and institutions of faith and keep them off the streets. I couldn't agree with you more. I think alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine, heroin, I mean they all present such a danger to the youth into society. I was watching CNN today and they were talking about the prison population doubling since 1985 and that one in 155 Americans are presently in prison. What we have to keep in mind is that when we're trying to take violent offenders off

the street that we have to make sure that we get somebody, prison cells are very, very valuable. There's not too many of them to tell you the truth. If we take a violent offender off the street we have to make sure he deserves that prison cell. He asked me the baddest of the bad and the kids that we can work with, the kids that we can funnel off into different programs and assistance. We have to do that and we have to reserve those prison cells for the worst kids that are out there. The other kids are happy putting themselves. Let's go to the phones again. We have Alonzo with station WEAA out of Baltimore. Welcome to PowerPoint Alonzo. Thank you Mr. Canais. Pleasure talking to you. Thank you. I just like to mention early on that I listened to a lot of the people that called in and they made some pretty valid points. And I appreciate you being putting this on the air for us to be able to comment like this in the public forum. What I'd like to say is in reference to juvenile violence I have to go back to what Mrs. Jasmine Cater said and that it wouldn't be fair to try children as adults in that we don't give them the same rights as

adults receive. And that's just a small point that I'd like to make but the greater point is this. I think that the reason the children are in the state of violence that they're in it goes all the way back to home. It's just it's based on home you know I mean if we could put the black families and this is what we're talking about. The majority of the children that are being punished are African Americans. We need to put the African American family at a point where it can take care of its own so to speak. Okay in the few moments we have left let me get our panel an opportunity to respond to that. Thanks a lot Alonzo for the call the question in the comment. Tom with you and with each of you very very briefly we only have a few seconds left. What about this this last point? I think that just because and it's true you know parents are dysfunctional and parents are neglecting their roles. But I don't think that's a reason for us as a community as a people to turn our backs on children. I rather see us look at the whole issue of perhaps

I'm holding parents. I'm more accountable than putting our young people our children in a presence with them adults. I think we need to have our voices be heard on the hill on this issue and call and write our sedenters let them know that we vehemently upholds and it builds in. In 10 seconds they left. Yes. Family we need to broadly define it's the responsibility is ours as well and as Randall Robinson said let's not fall subject to Vernon Jordan disease. Let's remember what we came from. I think we're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank you all Tom Bowen Jeff candidate Lieutenant Gary French Jasmine cater for this discussion on juvenile justice juvenile crime. I'm Kenneth Walker. This has been PowerPoint. The creators of PowerPoint include executive producer Reggie Hicks, senior producer Tony Regusters, producer and show director Debbie Williams, PowerPoint news producer Verna Avery Brown. Associate producer Tom Woodward, phone screener Kay Marshall, audio engineer Neil T. Valt, legal affairs, Theodore Brown. Our

announcer is Candy Shannon. PowerPoint's theme is from the CDF stops by Craig Harris. For PowerPoint, I'm Kenneth Walker. PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's radio program fund. This is PowerPoint, a production of Hicks and Associates. Thank you.