[music] I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

And I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, Zoë Towns.

She is executive director of FWD.us, launching the criminal justice reform portfolio of FWD.us in 2017, which includes advocacy, policy, research and a philanthropic agenda.

Welcome, Zoë.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm really excited for the conversation.

Me too.

As you embark on the 2025 landscape, and think about the most effective strategies to make the case for justice reform.

What do you think they are right now?

I think there's a lot of different arguments motivating policymakers to take a long look at their justice systems and their sentencing systems and structures.

I think one of the most important ones is just a large and growing body of evidence that shows that long prison terms don't advance public safety, in the ways that policymakers several decades ago thought that they might.

And that's opened up a whole bunch of opportunity and statehouses and at the federal system in Congress to consider, to reconsider, sort of both retroactively for folks that are already serving sentences.

And also, moving forward, how long someone should really spend in prison and whether they can be safely brought home.

So right now, that's opened up all kinds of conversations around clemency as governors transition out, and now through a presidential transition, as well as state legislators are meeting to think about parole reforms or second look sentencing, sort of to try to take into account this new evidence that shows that we actually just went quite far down the road of punitiveness.

And people are spending sometimes years or decades longer than is serving the public interest and the public safety interest.

That's one really big argument that's, I think, driving a lot of action and intention.

Youve cited examples in Republican majority legislature states, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, where bipartisan reforms were possible.

Can you elaborate on how that they manifested, and if it is a template for how to look at this, nationally or in other states?

Yeah.

One of the defining features of incarceration and the incarceration crisis that has sort of, grasped so many American communities over the course of the last several decades is that the crisis itself has impacted people in a bipartisan way, which is to say that, we did some research to show that, to try to ask how many people have been impacted by incarceration in their immediate families.

It turns out that that exposure rate is actually 1 in 2.

So 1 in 2 American adults have had an immediate family member, a mother, sort of a parent, a child, a sibling, incarcerated inside of their family in their lifetime that we also asked about, what party does your family identify with?

And it was completely even across the board, Republican and Democrat.

That's just one kind of, for me, a helpful reminder that while we try to sort of polarize and think about polarizing policy areas like this, the actual impact is coming down to communities regardless of who they're voting for.

And that is then being translated up by constituents to their policymakers.

And so we've been working in legislatures and as you said, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arizona and New York, really different political environments and have met Republican lawmakers, Independents and Democratic lawmakers who have heard often and urgently from their constituents, asking for them to think about either their individual family members or think about the issue more broadly, because voters have for a long time not been seeing the kinds of returns they would hope to see for the extraordinarily high cost of incarceration.

So, by way of example, in Oklahoma, this is a state that was a top incarcerating state for many, many decades.

It was the top incarcerator for women.

And in 2017, Republican lawmakers and then Republican Governor Mary Fallin came together to look at their prison system, to analyze data, to try to consider what could be done differently.

They were facing even more growth in the coming decade.

So they were having growing for decades.

Were going to grow more.

It was going to cost a billion dollars for taxpayers.

They came together and ushered a really large package of reforms through the legislature.

Around the same time, the people came together around a ballot initiative, that successfully reclassified some drug and property offenses out of prison sentencing.

That effort was preceded by a big clemency effort from the next governor, who was also a Republican.

And every year since, that state has kind of rolled up their sleeves and thought about criminal justice as everyday work of governing as opposed to sort of a once in a while reform.

And as a result, the population in prison has come down more than 20% since 2017, when they first started.

They're still rolling up their sleeves even this year in the legislative session to do even more.

Their crime rates are down over that same time period, and they're spending is down as well.

And they've been able to reinvest some of those dollars into things like victim services and reentry programs and drug treatment.

So that's one example from a pretty red state.

You know, obviously a hyper polarizing time for the over 60 years now, that the state that has moved reforms every single year.

One of the other reform, as you pointed out was a rather obsolete notion of a non-unanimous jury in Louisiana.

For those who might not be aware, many people were convicted in non-unanimous verdicts, and that was repealed as well.

Another example of a bipartisan legislative act.

One of the striking things we've discussed Zoë, is that a majority of convicted felons, system impacted people serving in prison or on probation or parole right now have committed non-violent offenses.

And often you hear people kind of conflate nonviolent with white collar.

And I think it's a mistake to do that, and to suggest that, offenses of a nonviolent nature somehow some sort of elite cabal of people.

Is this a persuasive message, you think, to the electorate that we don't hear enough that the majority of people in prison right now, did not commit any kind of violent offense?

So certainly the majority of people who are coming into contact with the criminal justice system are coming into contact, or what we would, I think, characterize comparatively as quite like low level, criminal offenses.

And so this is like, you know, drug crimes, property crimes, trespassing.

That's how most people interact with police and even with the court system, as you get, pulled deeper into the system, sometimes the offenses become more serious.

But for any of these kinds of offenses, sort of the, evidence base is different, but it is growing and robust.

That says like, you know, we haven't been using prison and punishment correctly for all kinds of different kinds of offenses.

And so when we ratcheted it up sentences both in terms of like just deciding that more and more and more kinds of conduct were felonies, and were more serious felonies, and then deciding that, like if you have a prior felony, you should go for that much longer and this much longer and this much longer.

And then, decreasing the kinds of ways that you could have a second look at your sentence.

And so both the inputs into the criminal justice system and, you know, massively increased.

And then the outputs, sort of the opportunities for release massively shrunk from the 1970s through to basically today.

And so I think at every stage of the system and also for every type of person going through it, the system is in pretty dire need of reform.

Certainly, you're absolutely correct that, like the vast majority of people who move through the criminal justice system, move through it for, what I think we would collectively think of as quite low level conduct, and conduct that like different states depending on where you are in the country, really treated quite differently and certainly different countries out of the United States treat very differently and sometimes not in the justice system at all.

I do recognize that there's been a push to classify drug crimes sweepingly as violent offenses.

Even if they are not related to any underlying, violent acts.

So, my question really is about the advocacy work that you've done when you see people more receptive to the argument for reform, if it does come from this place of recognizing, that the far reaching assertion of brutality of people who commit crimes, that's just not accurate.

In kind of clearing up maybe misperceptions about that, is that some of the work that you feel is effective?

It definitely is.

And also, I think people are frustrated by the problems that they're seeing unfold in front of them and their families and in their communities as it relates to, for example, drug use or, that the extraordinary stresses and danger that can come from addiction, for example.

And so what they want are real solutions that work.

And what they have oftentimes been offered are sort of demonstrate some toughness, that unfortunately have been borne out not to work at all.

So when it comes to the public health crisis that is, for example, fentanyl or other drugs that are really having an extraordinarily harmful impact on so many communities in America.

What we're trying to do is to really surface and socialize the solutions and the evidence base that will hopefully work to mitigate and to save lives.

And those have a lot to do with treatment and a lot to do with reducing dramatically the demand for those drugs through treatment.

What we know and what we've had tons of evidence to support is that this punitive approach that says we can sort of like, you know, incarcerate our way and, police our way out of this addiction crisis just literally has not worked.

Drugs are more available than ever before.

They're cheaper than ever before, and they are more potent than ever before, all at the same time as, they have been criminalized, massively.

And I think that voters and constituents are really hungry for solutions that will actually save their families lives and help get them back on their feet and, really begin to sort of like, repair the damage of what some of these public health crises these have exacted on communities and are eager for real solutions and are pretty tired, sort of the scare tactics and the fast solutions that have been offered that just are not bearing out to really solve the problem.

Understanding that federally.

The Republican one party, one political party now controls three branches.

Where do you see the potential, for national legislation to, set an example, for justice reform?

Or do you think in this year of 2025, you're going to be most focused on state legislative contests?

And what legislation might be crafted, on the state level.

We're going to be working on both.

I think there's, you know, it still remains to be seen just how, many opportunities there will be at the federal level and in Congress to advance reforms.

What we know is that there are a number of members from across both parties and in leadership that have been leaders on this issue for quite some time, whether it's through reforms like reducing the crack powder cocaine disparity that have never gotten fully over the finish line, well, some reforms have passed, but the full 1 to 1 has never gotten all the way over the finish line, but has certainly gotten close.

And with support from a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats, whether it's First Step Act, that already passed.

It was of course, led both by Republicans and Democrats and signed by then President Trump in his first term.

We've got right now a bill that has broad bipartisan support called Safer Supervision Act that's being advanced by Republicans and Democrats.

That takes a look at people who are on federal supervision and how to make sure that they can not sort of stay on there for interminably long times and won't be revoked back into prison for things that shouldn't be causing revocation.

And certainly shouldn't be resulting in incarceration.

So it remains to be seen how much we can get done through this Congress.

But I think, there's a lot of reasons to be encouraged, and there's been just a ton of education that has happened over the course of the last 15 years, as these lawmakers have been hearing from their state sort of partners and constituents who have gone through their own criminal justice reform processes.

And there's been a pretty positive feedback loop.

That's not to say this is not a really hard issue, and that it doesn't, require really careful conversations, but the sort of pressure from constituents and from the evidence base and from polling all kinds of different places saying, we've got to do something here, actually, because what we're doing is not working has been consistent and strong.

And then also, just like the encouragement that people have gotten from so many reforms passing in so many places and then being studied after the fact and shown to advance public safety, and also reduce incarceration safely, has really created a very powerful feedback loop that's kept people at the table.

So we are optimistic, whether it's in Congress or whether it's in places like West Virginia, that's looking at second look sentencing or in places like Missouri that's been a state that's been sort of really trying to move the ball forward on a variety of fronts.

Georgia has done a bunch of work, since as early as 2011 under Governor Nathan Deal, and is still rolling its sleeves up every year to look at different pieces of their system.

So, we are encouraged, I think it's super important to keep people at the table and to see this kind of work as sort of the every day, every year work of governance.

In my mind there can be both, a strong argument for, a significant reduction in the prison population.

At the same time, a strong argument for a reevaluation of how, we assess and address mental illness, in the lay population.

The most high profile examples that are used to demonize the people who are in the prison population or people who would be criminals are often now social media videos of mentally ill, deranged conduct by people, who should be institutionalized, who are not fit for civil society.

And, I think that's just a plain fact.

Now, the scale might vary from city to city and community to community, where do you think the justice reform movement should land on that question of, the institutionalization of mentally ill people who do threaten, daily activities on the streets or in the subway?

I think there's, like, a tremendous amount of work and attention that should go to figuring out how to keep people safe.

Both people who are in mental health crisis, are suffering from mental health conditions, and also just people at large that they're interacting with.

So, like, that's got to be a priority always.

I think when we sort of, sit down and look at the localized problems as they are presenting themselves, what we see as a whole, a very just a whole bunch of different kinds of issues and circumstances.

And what we really try to do with lawmakers is to just sort of like sit at the table and, look at the facts and the evidence in front of them and try not to have their policymaking be governed by whatever story is populating the headlines, sort of the individual more sensationalized stories that have historically not resulted in particularly good justice policy or public health policy.

And so what we know is that we're not unique in America.

There's tons, these are issues that, you know, countries across the world deal with and that states that are inside of America could deal with very, very differently.

And what that affords us is a whole bunch of examples of how we might introduce any number of different kinds of approaches based on the issues at hand.

So in some states and localities and cities in America as well as elsewhere, there's a big investment in, first responders that are not kind of coming to the scene with guns, for example, that are, you know, trained, mental health professionals that are able to de-escalate, able to figure out what services are necessary, what interventions are necessary, but also keeping community members safe.

Those programs have been studied.

They've been also shown to be very popular with voters and just have not been scaled in any kind of meaningful way.

And across jurisdictions, for example, there's also, like many other kinds of interventions and approaches.

And so for us, it's just sort of like not letting a single sort of headline dictate the conversation and not over simplifying or sort of like collapsing a single population and into sort of one solution.

I think really what we have in front of us is a bunch of really, really smart solutions, and how can we sort of sit down and begin to implement some of those, depending on the needs of the jurisdiction.

So would you say it's just not a sound argument.

That the decline of mental health hospitals, for example, can be attributed to more, mentally unwell people in public because that's an argument that's been made just looking at the data that these hospitals in many jurisdictions in the country did exist, that were specifically tailored to this audience, not a criminal jurisdiction or hospital, a mental health facility.

And many point to the shuttering of such facilities as correlated to what is the perception, maybe not the reality, but the perception of more, mentally unwell, people in public places in America.

What we see in the sort of trends, over the course of the last several decades.

More recently, there's been, thankfully, a reduction in the number of people who are locked up.

But it doesn't in any way.

The increase, was much larger.

So we had this massive 400% increase.

And there are people that are incarcerated from the 1980s onwards.

And then a more recent decrease down to, 20% down since 2008, which is good news, but not nearly far enough.

I say that to say that like, certainly there was deinstitutionalization of some sort of, mental health hospitals that happened that had many kinds of impacts.

It has been eclipsed massively by the huge increase in incarceration.

And so we're not looking at some sort of like massively less, contained population or more free population than we were when we had a lot of mental health hospitals.

Quite the contrary.

So to me, it doesn't quite make sense that like what we might be seeing today is a result of, fewer people being removed from society because, of course, far, far more people have been removed from society over that time.

I think what we're seeing today is another reminder that the kinds of approaches that we have been throwing at any number of public health crises and, economic crises.

That which largely just disproportionately are just based and enforcement and based on punishment aren't working.

So what we know is that, like when you increase incarceration massively, what you're doing is you're also increasing a primary driver of the mental health crisis.

People don't come out of prisons and jails more mentally stable.

And by and large, in fact, it has huge mental health and other health outcomes, negative outcomes.

So I think, if we're wanting to think about mental health and the mental health crisis, a really good place to start is how do we take really seriously the harms and the kind of exacerbations that, institutionalization and incarceration have on the mental health crisis.

That's fair.

Because I think the reduction in the prison population, if that can be correlated with increased public safety, then that is a mission that can have generate bipartisan support.

Right.

And public favorability broadly.

I just don't know if you get there even with the data on your side, if there are these incidents, and I just don't know that you can achieve more reductions in the prison population if there's a public perception that we have to be overtly or overly sensitive to this issue in lieu of recognizing when there's a real threat to, people on the streets.

And I just wonder where you get that riddle?

Where you make that riddle right, and work for people?

If there is an acknowledgment of, the public health threat to the layperson, if we don't address the mental health crisis.

Absolutely.

So, a big part of what we're trying to advocate for.

And what we feel like is, both correct and persuasive is that, you know, people want and we want real public safety solutions and real public health solutions that actually work.

So let's start there.

And then let's look at the really large evidence base of different kinds of approaches that we can be investing in and scaling up.

That would reduce mental health crises, that would, kind of keep communities safer, that would reduce gun violence, for example, it would reduce property crimes.

There's a lot of really good interventions that we've seen work in this country and we've seen work elsewhere.

That's the first thing that we need to just like take very, very seriously.

And when you do that process, what you see is incarceration does not make the list.

It just doesn't make the list.

It's just, there's a ton of science, there's a ton of really good criminological inquiry into this.

And, it's certainly at the levels that we incarcerate, it is, in fact, an exacerbator of a lot of the same things that are making people feel so anxious and nervous and, in some cases, actually making them actually be unsafe.

So whether it is actual violence both in and outside of the home, whether it is mental health crises, whether it is the drug or overdose crisis, whether it is homelessness, these are all, each of these pieces get exacerbated when you have a really hyper, sort of large incarceration system, you're just actually driving instability in communities and pulling apart the very social fabric that actually works to keep communities safe.

And so we kind of know, I think all of us, what a safe community feels like.

And you look around in those and you see a lot of sort of physical and community infrastructure, and that's not just, a soft, fuzzy feeling.

There's actually a ton of evidence base that shows that, when you invest in this community infrastructure, whether it's literally like, street lights or whether it's sort of that, however many nonprofits are in that community area to support the area.

It is literally having an outsized impact on things like homicide rates.

That is, steeper and larger.

That impact is more impressive than anything that we have in the actual criminal justice toolbox as it relates to enforcement policies.

So I think the conversation starts with, yes, absolutely.

Like, yes, you want your community to be safe.

Yes, you want to address the mental health crisis.

How can we do that?

Let's look at the evidence base.

Let's not do the things that have actually exacerbated it, and that have drawn resources away from the programs and policies that would actually sort of support it.

That's fair.

Is there anything that we have not captured that would, in your mind be essential to the realization of this kind of Marshall Plan for justice reform so that by 2030, you know, not only are there fewer people incarcerated, there's less criminal activity.

Yeah.

There's a widespread feeling of safety.

You've talked a little bit about how we get there, but is there anything we missed?

Well, I think one of the things for us to really understand is that this is not uncharted.

So we had decades of, really skyrocketing growth to the number of people that we sent to jails and prisons.

And we got to the point, in the 2000s where 1 in 100 people were locked up behind bars in America and there was this astonishing exposure rate to incarceration, including the 1 in 2 people that had somebody in their families that had been impacted by incarceration, and then sort of a lot of education, a lot of sort of, voters saying, wait a second, this is not what I wanted.

I didn't sign up for this.

Resulted in a series of reforms that began over two decades ago, but really took hold in 2008 when the prison population for the first time started to come down and has come down consistently since then, to the point that we are now looking at, 20%+ decrease in the number of people that are incarcerated from its peak.

We also as I'm sure you know, and many of the viewers know, the incarceration crisis was defined by its racial inequities.

And so when we did the work of trying to say, like, whoa, we've gone too far.

This has been so harmful to America, a lot of that education was about the disparities in black incarceration.

And what's incredible news is that as the overall prison population has come down, that number has actually come down much farther and faster for black people.

So the black incarceration rate has actually been cut in half.

And now black men are more likely in their lifetime to graduate from college than to go to prison, which should have always been the case, but actually wasn't the case just a decade ago.

So I say all of that not to say everything's fine, don't worry, but to say that, like what we have shown that because of these bipartisan collaborations in places like Texas and Mississippi and because of these big reforms that happened to the court level in California or at the ballot in Oklahoma and Louisiana or in Congress with the First Step Act, all of these added up to pretty astonishing impacts that have quite literally delivered, more sort of strength in people's communities at home, people are coming home, families are back together.

And it's no surprise then that crime rates have actually come down alongside that decrease in incarceration.

So I think for me, the most important sort of proof point to carry with us for a future vision is that we can do this.

We can have more justice and more safety at the same time.

We've shown it is possible, and it's about just sort of staying the course so that we can fully kind of turn the tide on.

This era in American history that has not delivered safety and has sort of strangled the justice that so many communities deserve.

Zoë Towns, executive director of FWD.us, thank you so much for your insight today.

Thanks for having me.

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