- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind The Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- A different look at strategies around criminal justice tonight, on Behind The Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I am Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Natalie McKinney, Executive Director and co-founder of Whole Child Strategies, Inc.

Thanks for being here again.

- Thank you.

- And Cardell Orrin, Executive Director of Stand for Children Tennessee.

Thank you for being here again.

Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks again for y'all being here.

We've been doing a whole series of shows on criminal justice.

I mean, again, for a year and a half, two years now, we've had you both on before together and in I think, different combinations.

And we're in the midst of, with a new mayor, a new legislature, a big letter from the business community, the Chamber of Commerce, asking the legislature to do things.

Thought it was a good time to have you all on and kind of talk about all these issues and more, the whole conversation around CJ Davis and the police director as well.

But first, just so people know, give me your 30 second or so.

Now, I'll start with you, Natalie.

What do you, the work you do and the and so on?

- I am a place-based organization primarily in North Memphis communities, Klondike and Smokey City.

And we are community led efforts intermediary that equip people to grow sustainable communities and families so that youth will thrive.

- Alright.

And Cardell, for you, what you and Stand for Children do.

- So we do community organizing, policy advocacy, especially around educational equity and racial justice.

We do that with individuals and we do that in building coalitions both here and across the state.

- So for both of you, a broad question and we'll get specific and walk through the Chamber letter and we'll talk about legislature.

But what in general, and you can criticize me and you can criticize Daily Memphian, whether the show or both, the media, the social media conversation, what is missing, if anything, and I think you're gonna say there's things missing, from the conversation about crime, criminal justice, public safety, policing and so on.

- So I think, you know, in a lot of ways when we think about justice and safety and we generally frame that around criminal justice and crime.

And we don't think broadly about what is safety.

So safety is food security, it's housing security, it's transportation.

It's these things that impact whether people feel safe.

And then that also impacts how the safety of other people around them and their communities and the other things.

So I think what is missing is the real context around what is it that means that is safety.

It's not just criminal crime, safety from crime.

It's not just violent crime.

It's really a broader sense of safety.

And then the other thing that I think is missing is data, evidence and context.

And so a lot of the times that we talk about information here, and we've done it over the last several decades, is that we'll roll out data and information that's correlated or, you know, causal is all mixed up.

We don't have data and sometimes we want data, sometimes we don't want data.

And then we don't have context.

What's the context in the state scope, in the national scope so that we get a sense of what is working, what is not working, what is just going along with national trends and what are things that are actually happening here in our community.

- We'll come back to all that, but I wanna get Natalie in.

Again that, that notion of what's missing.

- Well, I think I'm gonna, I think he talked a lot about safety, expanding our notion of safety.

So I'm gonna expand our notion of justice.

Justice is around what are we asking why these things are happening?

Why are opportunity youth doing these crimes?

Why are youth getting into some trouble?

Why, we gotta keep asking why.

And so we have to get to the root causes.

And a lot of this is systemic.

So what's missing in the conversation is what's our responsibility as local government officials, state government officials, national officials to make sure these systems are working the way they should be working, not the way they were intended, which is what we are getting the result of that now.

So what are we doing to ensure that we are providing resources where they need to be?

And I think the other piece of what's missing is we're not talking to the people that this is impacting.

We're not including them in these conversations.

These little focus groups and these little, I drop in here and drop in there, extract information and then go figure out what we're going to do.

We've done that over and over and over again.

And it's definition of insanity.

We're not gonna get any different results.

- Let me bring in Bill.

- When you talk about getting at the root causes of crime, I think there are gonna be some people listening who are gonna say that equates with a long-term approach, something that is going to take time.

Is there room for looking at the root causes of a problem and attacking those and still dealing with the immediate crime problem?

- Because I really push back a lot on this idea that we are talking about long-term strategies and that somebody else, other folks have short-term strategies.

Because as far as I can tell, the main strategy that we've had, at least over the last eight years, and I'd probably say over the last 20 at least years, has been that we need to have a certain number of police force.

There's a magic number of police that will then make us safe from crime.

And we've just spent the last eight years chasing a number that we are still at the same number that we were at eight years ago.

So when we talk about long term and short term, let's really start to think about what is long term and short term and where these impacts can come.

We support, advocate for a lot of things that can be very immediate in their need.

Most of the things that we hear in general and status quo kind of recommendations and asks and legislative asks that we've had coming out of here have been things that are going to take time.

There is not an immediate fix.

And anybody who's telling you that there's an immediate fix is not telling you the truth.

- And immediate fix is not mass incarceration.

That is not the immediate fix.

More police officers is not the immediate fix.

This is not Minority Report, for anybody who knows that, that we're gonna be able to figure out who's going to commit a crime before it happens.

Police are reactionary so that you can't, more police just means we have more people out there to be reactionary.

So back to what Cardell said is why don't we have a more expansive notion of safety?

So when I get a call about domestic violence, I'm not sending a police officer out there.

I'm sending a tactical unit that deals with, has specializes in domestic violence with police standing by in case we have to do that.

When you have somebody who's lost on the street, I had this encounter, I didn't know who to call.

This man didn't know where he was.

I had to call the police.

I didn't have any other alternatives.

So what can we do differently?

Everyone keeps saying that they don't want to do this or they just ignore the other alternatives because they don't want to, I feel like they don't have the will.

There's a way, there's not the will.

And so that's the mindset we need to change as well with some of our leadership.

- So we have, since 2022, we saw county elections where a candidate for District Attorney General and a candidate for juvenile court judge specifically campaigned on a reform platform changing the institutions that they govern.

We've seen moves at juvenile court, like a group of about 21 full time employees that the county has funded hiring for juvenile court to deal with youth who are there for issues that involve child welfare as opposed to the delinquency side of the ledger there.

What do you think of those moves?

- I think those are the right moves.

That's exactly what we need.

I think what we forget about the juvenile system is it's about rehabilitation.

It's not about retribution.

And I think that's what we're forgetting.

And I think that Judge Sugarmon and his staff have realized that we can do things on the front end of this Even once they get in here, there's still things we can do.

People are not born criminals.

Things happen to them that put them down that line.

So we need to, again, we need to ask why.

Do we sit down in a room and do we ask these youth, why?

Do we ask their parents why?

What's going on?

What do you need?

And they'll tell you.

- Cardell, what do you think of the efforts of District Attorney Mulroy?

- I think they're headed in the right direction.

I mean clearly we supported DA Mulroy and Judge Sugarmon.

And also remembering that what they're trying to do is unwrap and unravel decades if not centuries, of a particular path that we've been headed down.

The Justice and Safety Alliance released a report that has some historical analysis, reimagined policing that, or policing reimagined.

We actually flipped it, policing reimagined, where we actually showed some of the history both national and local in terms of Dr. Dwayne Lawrence from Rhodes College shows some of the history of national and local around policing and around, you know, criminal justice and has some recommendations around things that we can do.

So recognizing, especially when we talked about the court, it's a lineage of 50, 60 years that was all under basically the same kind of paradigm of structure and positioning towards young people in our community.

DA's Office is a similar manner we've seen passed down.

You know, I mean Bill, you know this well, you know, one person would resign, another person get appointed in the interim and then that person would run.

So we've had a constant kind of shifting of, you know, mentor/mentee like moving down the line, even in the Prosecutor's Office.

And so it's gonna take time to shift.

And at the same time, the rhetoric has not just stayed the same but been enhanced as we saw, you know, especially for the waning years of his administration from Mayor Strickland, a doubling down on rhetoric that, you know, had false information, anecdotal information, trying to frame a whole system without clear, accurate information that tried to shift the way that people view the new DA coming in, the new judge coming in.

And that I can talk about more, about more of the history of that.

If we talk about the revolving door kind of rhetoric.

- Let me take one second to just remind people a couple things.

One, I should have said we're taping this a week ago.

And so as we talk about the DA, we talk about Mayor Young, we talk about the legislature, some things could have happened in between, so I should have mentioned that earlier.

We also have, excuse me, DA Mulroy is coming on next week.

Last week we had Kevin Ritz, the US Attorney on.

We do have Paul Young coming on in a couple of weeks and we've got Brent Taylor and London Lamar, two local state senators who certainly Brent Taylor is in the middle of a whole lot of proposals around changes to the criminal justice system and the laws.

That's at the end of February.

So I wanna make sure everyone knows we have a whole set of opinions and a set of perspectives that we are reflecting here in the show.

So with 14 minutes left, I want to, let's go to that notion that took on a huge amount of significance in the conversation.

The notion of the revolving door.

I guess one I think you're saying that isn't happening or isn't happening at the rate and frequency that former Mayor Strickland claimed.

I'll let you respond to that, but two, there are repeat offenders out there, right?

There are repeat violent offenders out there, whether they are juvenile or they are adults doing not broken taillights, not even car thefts, but violent crimes and being released.

And they do exist, whether the numbers are unclear because the system has zero transparency.

That drives me nuts and I rant about it all the time.

It would help everyone if we had better data.

That said, so go to the revolving door.

And I think that's part of the data you're saying is misrepresented.

But two address however many repeat offenders there are from your perspective, how do you deal with repeat offenders?

- Yes, so I mean, there's not been data around revolving door.

We've seen anecdotes, but no actual statistical aggregated data of here's what is defined by the revolving door.

And I would, you know, push back on you all accepting that from a media standpoint because what is the definition of a revolving door?

Like we've got supposition and, you know, perception of what is meant by revolving door only by anecdotal information.

Let's define what it is and then prove that that is actually happening.

And so yes, we would say that that's not happening the way that they would say.

In fact, you know, in the latter part, I think when he was on this show, one of the things I think Mayor Strickland said at the end was I wish that I had talked about the revolving door sooner.

And I went back and I found there was a town hall meeting back from 2009 where the title of it was Revolving Door.

You know who hosted that as a City Councilperson?

Jim Strickland.

You know who was the DA at the time?

Bill Gibbons.

And so we've been talking about this idea of a revolving door and it shifts and it comes back when we want to assert a specific thing.

So when DA Gibbons, there was a revolving door and they didn't fix it by, you know, mass incarceration type of legislation.

And then they went and it took a break for a while, for eight years while Mayor Strickland was mayor.

And now, you know, at the waning years as we're trying to figure out and cast blame about failures of an administration, we are then talking about a revolving door again to cast aspersions on the DA and judge.

- I don't know, to his point, on the data.

So we use this language and it's just, it's meant to inflame and to get people to think that oh, all these things that are happening because we are letting all these people out of jail.

So that gets to the bail reform measures.

They haven't looked at any of the data, but we did.

I think you have that data where it's actually, the judge has been keeping track of that and they're actually saying that the rearrest based on people that were put on bail and let out at, was at 11% before bail reform.

It's gone down to I think 4% at something like that.

It's gone down to 4%.

I may not have those numbers right, but it's gone down significantly.

And so this whole, so then that to me casts this dispersion on, is there really a revolving door or is this a function of, one of the things, I had a conversation one time with Sheriff Bonner, I said, what are we reporting 'cause you know, the data's not transparent.

Are we reporting what one person does or are we reporting the number of offenses?

So there's also, once you are reporting data, what is exactly, what are you exactly reporting?

And so there's truth in advertising.

So one of the things that you can do is be more transparent, put it out there, let us get it.

Why do we have to fight for data?

- And there've been, I'm sorry, didn't mean to cut you off, but there have been these, the County Commission is now asking or requiring of the judicial commissioners more data of how they're operating.

Steve Mulroy has hired a chief data officer and is trying to get more data out there.

And I think everyone should welcome more data.

Let me come back to one more, the question though.

There are some number of repeat offenders, right?

Even if they are anecdotal.

From your perspective, how to deal with repeat violent offenders.

- So there's two tracks on that, I would say.

You know, one is how do we address that to try to cut down on the number of repeat offenders.

I think, you know, Deandre Brown, the Offic of Reentry is doing some great work trying to pull together a justice network to say how do we actually try to support people as they are incarcerated especially and when they're reentering, reintegrating into society so that they actually can have thriving lives, you know, as they rehabilitate, as Natalie said.

For repeat offenders that actually are, you know, repeat offender are doing things and doing, there is a system set up to address that.

And I would say, I believe if we look at the data and we actually parse out with the right questions and asking for, you know, to get the data and the right answers, that we would probably see that people who are having multiple violent offenses and where there are cases being brought and where there's clearance rates, like where police are finding them and they're being brought to court, it would be very interesting to see if we drilled into that what is happening to those people, especially with the draconian laws we passed at the state level.

- And that's a perfect example was when we had the murder of the young woman jogger.

The perfect example is when we had the young Ezekiel Kelly shooting, they're both in the system as juveniles.

- But from 20 years.

- Yes.

But the system failed them.

And so we need to start, Again this is about, we just want to put accountability on the victims.

'Cause I believe that if you're a child, you're a victim and you're not getting the help you need, you're a victim of the system.

I've heard that it's a parent dynamic that they're a failure.

But we can talk about that too, where we're blaming the parents who are really, most of them are trying to do what they need to do, but because they're not being paid appropriate local living wages, they've got to have two or three jobs.

So this, we can go, if we keep asking why, we'll get to the reasons why.

People don't want to ask why and they don't want to do what they need to do with the systems.

- And I just wanna say that this is not saying that there's not accountability in the system, but what the research says is that accountability needs to be swift, certain, but not necessarily severe.

And so if we can drill into the data and into the courts and get it to be swift and certain, then we can talk about how severe does it need to be and how do we make sure that people have the greatest opportunity to be rehabilitated and reenter society.

- Bill.

- We also here talk about the concept of deterrence.

Is deterrence relevant in your view to what we do with criminal justice?

Is deterrence something that actually happens with people who have encounters with the criminal justice system?

- Not in the way that people want us to say.

So I think there's a deterrence of, let's call people in and give them this choice thing that they've been doing, which hasn't actually been done in the way that research and you know, the experts on it would suggest to be done because they've done, here's the stick, we're gonna lock you up if you do something else.

But they don't actually have supports.

They have tables and they have, you know, nonprofits, but they aren't giving money to the nonprofits to actually serve the people.

So one on focused deterrence, there's a need to, if we're gonna do it, let's actually do it in the way that it's supposed to be done and then see if it works.

And then on deterrence in the other ways, deterrence just from laws passing mass incarceration, truth in sentencing laws in and of themselves, research shows doesn't work.

Now if you add on a marketing campaign, research says that maybe it works, but it only works to the extent that the marketing campaign goes up.

When the marketing campaign is gone, it goes down.

And what you're left with is mass incarceration that has the greatest disproportionate impact on black and brown communities.

- Marketing campaign saying that if you commit a crime, you'll have a severe sentence.

- Right.

Yes.

- That kind of thing.

Natalie, go ahead.

- You know, he's basically said, I don't believe, we have laws on the books.

People break them.

That's supposed to be deterrence.

So I mean, I think that the greatest deterrence is actually meeting people's needs, because again, I don't think people are basically evil and want to do these things.

I think this is because people don't have what they need.

If I can give a quick story that I heard from someone, they were in an Uber, they were with an Uber driver.

Uber driver told her a story about taking these three youth to Walgreens.

They come back into the car and they're having a conversation saying, "Yeah, they tried to stop us stealing this candy."

So the driver entered into a conversation and said, "Hey, why don't you like go apply for these jobs that are out there" like the, you know, some of the McDonald's, the Targets, the Amazon.

And they said, "We can't read.

We can't fill out those things so what are we supposed to do?"

And they're acknowledging, I don't have the skillset, I didn't get what I was promised, what I was constitutionally guaranteed.

So again, I'm coming from the people perspective.

I'm always gonna come from the people perspective.

Ask them what they need, listen to them.

And part of listening is acting.

So do what you need to do with some of these systems.

- Someone out there listening is gonna say, so that makes it okay for them to steal candy?

- No, it doesn't make it okay.

What it does, it's giving you the why.

So when I say listen to the why, then there's the act.

So what do I do to correct that?

- The Greater Memphis Chamber has put out a letter requesting help from the state.

What are your views of that letter as we are in session now in Nashville with the legislature.

- And let me run through real quickly some of the requests: fifty million dollars for protection of some sort in tourist zones, bring in more public defenders and judges, possession of a stolen firearm would become a felony, blended sentencing legislation around juveniles, bail reform measures, car forfeiture for drag racing and reckless driving, hiring and bonuses for highway patrol officers.

That's some of the highlights of it.

- So my thing is, it was disingenuous and irresponsible to send a letter like this without data, period.

It's designed to inflame, and particularly with the fact that I don't know that the legislation was filed at the time.

So you're basic basically saying whatever he says, we want him to do it because we know it's gonna be severe.

- Brent Taylor's Senate proposals.

- Right?

And so that's problematic.

What I saw, and I went back through it, what I saw was all of these business leaders not taking responsibility for their failures.

So for instance, people are probably, people we don't know why people are committing these crimes mostly 'cause we won't ask them.

But let's just go down the line that I'm committing it because I need money.

I need money because either I don't have the skillset to get a job that I can make money, I can't get to the job 'cause I don't have public transportation or I'm not being paid enough to live.

So when I think about what our business leaders can do, let's pay a local living wage.

Fifteen dollars is not going to take care of a family.

Fifteen dollars with both parents getting fifteen dollars an hour is not going to take care of a family of four.

So to be clear, what is their responsibility and what are they going to be held accountable to?

That little one sentence, so we're going to, we have capital projects.

What, you're building more buildings so you can make more money?

- This letter is on the Daily Memphian site if you search for, I think Sam Hardiman did the story and you can find the full letter probably on the Chamber site as well, but on Daily Memphian.

A couple minutes left and I'm sorry to cut you off.

Response to the business leaders chamber.

- Yeah, I think that it's ill-informed.

We've sent them a letter to try to give some additional information and context around the things that they asserted in the letter.

So, you know, we'd be happy to share that.

I will just go to what, because people will say, well what do you think are alternatives?

And I think that rather than, and I think that most of the things that they ask for in that letter are not going to actually reduce crime.

If we wanted to actually reduce crime, what we believe that you could do, you could take 20, if you ask for $50 million, just take that.

You could take 20, 30 million of that and put it into violence intervention in communities, Heal 901, Memphis Artists for Change, Lifeline and Success, Neighborhood Christian Center are doing work in communities and can do intervention that we'll see a much more immediate impact.

Let's take another $20 million and if we've got, you know, a hundred children regularly in detention and maybe a thousand in there over a year, let's take 20, 30 million of that and put it into wrapping around those young people and their families.

And that would have a disproportionate impact on this repeat offense.

What we think is juvenile crime, again, also recognizing that we put a lot of emphasis on youth crime, juvenile crime when it's only about 10% and we still need to focus on a whole adult thing.

- No, no, that's fine.

We're almost at time.

We have a new mayor, we have a interim police chief as of the day we're recording, which is a week from when this played.

What do you wanna see real quickly, from the new mayor?

- I want the new mayor to focus in on stronger neighborhoods.

That's one of the things.

and putting the resources where they need to be to help shift the systems to- - You think he will?

- I'm hoping so.

- Cardell.

- You know, one, follow the traffic ordinances and actually reinforce the laws that City Council passes.

- The pretextual stops.

- Pretextual stops and those pieces.

And then let's also look at the data and ask the right questions to try to get the right answers.

Generally I think we ask the wrong questions and maybe get the right answers to the wrong questions.

- And we ask the wrong people.

- And a lot of times we ask the wrong questions and have the wrong answers.

So let's get the data, let's get the information and let's focus on valuing people and communities.

- Alright, thank you both.

Sorry to cut you off there.

Sorry, Bill.

Thank you very much for being here and thank you for joining.

Again, We've got other folks in the criminal justice system, public safety system coming up in the coming weeks.

If you missed any of the show today, you can get the full episode at wkno.org.

Go to YouTube or download the full episode as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks very much.

We'll see you next week with DA Mulroy.

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