- [Presenter] Production and distribution of City Club forums and Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat music) (bell chimes) - Hello and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, Chief Executive here and a proud member.

Today's Friday, June 18th, and we're here for another virtual City Club forum live from the studios of our partner Ideastream Public Media, big thanks to them.

And of course, congrats on the new branding.

This is an important forum today.

It's the inaugural Charles R. See Forum on Re-Entry.

Now, if you don't know Charles See, and I suspect actually that many of you do, for 44 years he worked to support and advocate for people returning to the community after incarceration.

During his tenure at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries, Mr. See expanded Community Re-Entry Incorporated and helped to establish the innovative and nationally-recognized Care Teams program which trains citizens, returning citizens for positions assisting older adults living in public housing.

It's in Mr. See's honor, that we partner with Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries to present our speaker today.

It's DeAnna Hoskins, and she'll be discussing a new approach to criminal justice reform and her own journey from incarceration to advocacy.

Hoskins is President of JustLeadershipUSA, which has a goal of cutting the US correctional population in half by 2030.

We'll talk about how they do that work and how they've been doing it.

Ms. Hoskins joined in 2018 and the organization is less than 10 years old.

Hoskins is an Ohio native and nationally recognized for the work that she's been doing for nearly two decades.

I wanna note too, before we get started, that the federal government and much of the nation is celebrating Juneteenth today and tomorrow.

That's a celebration of freedom, recognizing the end of chattel slavery two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Finally, news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Galveston, Texas.

And though our conversation today would be needed and necessary at any time, hosting it on Juneteenth, I think brings a deeper and really important resonance.

Now, as in every City Club forum, you can participate with your questions.

If you have a question, text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet your question at the City Club, if you are on Twitter, we'll try to work them in.

DeAnna Hoskins of JustLeadershipUSA, welcome to the City Club.

- [DeAnna] Thank you, Dan, how are you?

- I'm great.

It's so good to see you.

Thank you for joining us from Cincinnati, Southern Ohio.

It's wonderful to build these sort of cross municipality, cross geography kinds of conversations.

Tell us about, I wanna just jump right into the platform that JustLeadershipUSA has, the advocacy platform that you've offered recently.

There's a Roadmap that JustLeadership put out encouraging the new federal administration, the new White House administration and others in the legislature as well, to take on this issue of criminal justice reform.

It's a big document, the Roadmap has a lot in it.

But why don't you start with the near term pieces that you think can be implemented right away.

- [DeAnna] Thank you, Dan.

As you'll see, of course JustLeadership being an organization that was founded by and operated by people who've been directly impacted by the criminal justice system.

We were very strategic in our Roadmap.

What we knew is that upon this new administration and the way the House and the Senate was set up, we had about a 24 month run.

We know that when you start talking legislation, to build champions, to get the legislation drafted, that that can take you up to 12 to 18 months.

And we felt we don't have time to wait.

So there are some actions that this administration can take that will actually be where the rubber hits the road, right?

So we broke our Roadmap down into those actionable items of short-term, mid-term and long-term.

We identified things that the President can literally do an executive action on around revitalizing the Federal Inter-agency Reentry Council, which is bringing all of those federal agencies back together so that they could look at their administrative rules that are creating barriers out in the community for people with criminal backgrounds.

Of course we're asking them to appoint a formerly incarcerated person into a position of leadership that helps direct and lead the criminal justice agenda within the White House.

Another executive order... One of the things that most people don't know, we just partnered with an organization and we're launching the People's First campaign next week.

And what the People's First campaign is, it's around the utilization of humanizing language.

The Obama administration had actually had an executive memo, that the federal government could not use dehumanizing language.

You had to use people-centered language in your grant solicitations, in your research documents.

The last administration rescinded that.

That was right when I walked away from the federal government, when that memo was rescinded, that we had to go back to using dehumanizing language such as convict, felon, inmate.

Another one we're asking them to do is to re-constitute the Office of Access to Justice, which they've already done three weeks ago.

So we know that this administration is listening to those most impacted.

They have actually re-instituted the Office of Access to Justice, which was originally created up under AG Holder to increase access to justice as an initiative.

And it actually is around the, they actually created what is called the Legal Aid Interagency Roundtables, where they actually work with legal aid agencies across the country and where some of that funding comes from.

The last administration had dismantled that office as well.

So we have gotten one of our short terms actually implemented.

Then we moved to midterm administration reforms, and we broke it down by departments.

One of the things that this, the last administration actually dismantled as well, was the directive and the reinstatement.

We asked them to reinstate the Smart on Crime Initiative.

I don't know if you remember, in 2018, - [Dan] When was that?

- [DeAnna] I'm sorry, yeah, in 2018, First Step Act was taunted as the most progressive criminal justice reform, but then you had AG Sessions come behind First Step Act and mandate that the harshest penalties be used.

It was totally in conjunction with what you were saying you were trying to do.

So the directive, not to use mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug convictions, right?

Mr. Holder at the time had instructed prosecutors to omit details about drug quantities from charging documents, that would not trigger those automatic harsh penalties.

And what we just saw the Supreme Court of the United States actually just challenged First Step Act, for a gentleman who wanted to be re-sentenced on his crack conviction, and because his previous criminal activities was used, they overturned it and said a First Step Act did not apply to people who had low level crack charges.

But the country thought that's what First Step Act was addressing, in the sec, Supreme court just overturned that and kinda just stepped on First Step Act to show its uselessness at this point.

What First Step Act did do is protect white collar crimes and protecting people who would be considered low risk to actually almost get a free ticket out of prison is what we saw during COVID.

We saw the people who were released from prison and where the people who were basically the President's friends.

- DeAnna, let me just interrupt for a second.

Let me just jump in here for a second remind our listeners that if you're just joining us, we're talking with DeAnna Hoskins, she's President of JustLeadershipUSA, which is an advocacy organization that works on shifting policy around criminal justice issues and issues around re-entry.

If you wanna join the conversation, if you have a question about these issues, text it to 330-541-5794 or tweet it at the City Club and we'll work it into the program, in the second half of the program.

And I just wanted to mention that we have a link.

If you're on Twitter, we have a link to this Roadmap that we're talking about on our Twitter feed, and it's on my Twitter feed too, for what it's worth.

And it's really expansive.

And I just wanna, before we get too deep on the First Step Act and your critique of that, I wanted to come back to just point out that some of these areas here, the abolition of solitary confinement, a moratorium on the use of risk assessment tools which is, there's a nuance there that's really interesting.

And I mean, all sorts of things in the midterm and then long-term legislation that you're advocating for, that includes the repeal and reversal of the 1994 Crime Bill and also eventually constitutional reform of the 13th Amendment as well, and ending felony disenfranchisement allowing returning citizens the opportunity to vote.

This is a very, very comprehensive advocacy agenda.

And I just wanna point to the, after we talk about the First Step Act I want to ask you a little bit about why policy, why the focus on policy and not programs because I think that's an important distinction as well.

But you were talking DeAnna Hoskins about the First Step Act, which was really lauded as this major progressive reform and some set of surprisingly progressive reform, given the conservative nature of the Trump administration.

But you had some serious critiques of it.

- [DeAnna] And I do, and I wanna move past that.

But one of the biggest critiques I had about the First Step Act, being a person who was the Senior Policy Advisor that managed and oversaw the Second Chance Act out of the Department of Justice, we had already started having conversations around risk assessment and the biases within them.

Not only did we have conversation around risk assessments, Second Chance Act had been studied and researched over the last 10 years.

And as we all know, especially people who run programs is that your resources are supposed to focus on people at highest risk of recidivating.

What First Step Act did with the risk assessment tool, is it created good time days for having participation in programs.

But then it went on to say, the people who could participate in those programs must score low risk on a risk assessment tool.

Well that goes against all the research in the world that the federal government had at the time, and saying where your resources should go.

And when black and brown people consider always to score high risk simply based on how our communities are overpoliced, how our schools have more law enforcement than we do social workers and the static questions on a risk assessment tool.

You were outright excluding the most marginalized, most oppressed community from even accessing programs within correctional facilities to get the good time.

So that was my biggest critique, which goes back to why our Roadmap asks for a moratorium until more research can be done on risk assessment tools.

- Let me ask you about risk assessment tools, because they were implemented largely to eliminate the subjectivity of folks on the bench, of judges who were applying sentences in disproportionate manners and so forth, and this was to help take some of the guess work and remove some of the biases that might, the implicit biases that might be present.

However, it sounds like what you're saying is that the tools themselves have these biases built in.

- [DeAnna] So you think about who attached the scores to the bias, to this tools, probably White Caucasian academia, who certain things mattered to them without understanding how communities are policed, how, when you ask me questions, and I always use myself as an example.

I can be President of the United States but there are certain things about my life I can never change, right?

I can never change the fact that I was arrested five or six times.

I can never change the facts that I violated probation when I was under correctional control.

I can never change the fact that I, may have dropped out of school in the 10th grade.

Those are the static questions on a risk assessment tool that is attached.

The only way you start to reduce your level, your score, is as you age, for individuals.

So those are the dynamic.

Those are the things that move, is your age.

Those are static questions that I could never change which always for black and brown.

So let's talk about me and you, two different people that grow up in the same city.

Our teenage sons steal our car, we both call the police.

The police find your car and your kid.

They park your car, take your kid to the station, call you to come pick him up.

The police find my kid in my car.

My car gets impounded.

My kid goes to juvie hall and I have to go to court to get him out.

Now both of our kids end up in prison.

When they go to do the risk assessment tool, your kid has no static questions 'cause he never made it to juvie hall.

My kid already has points against him because he was in juvie hall, same police department, but we know they respond to us totally different.

- That is a great example.

And it's hard to argue with that.

As you were saying before about violating probation, I think people, there are people who will hear, "Oh, she violated probation."

Well then, anyone who violates probation deserves to go back to jail.

But I don't think a lot of people really understand what's involved in probation.

Can you describe actually what probation involves and how that can get sometimes in the way of trying to rebuild your own life?

- [DeAnna] So of course, definitely probation is a community supervision and accountability for whatever the crime is you committed.

But there are conditions of probation that must be met.

So when a person violates probation in any way, you're saying the various conditions on that probation.

So here in Ohio, Hamilton county being late to an appointment, not making curfew, actually failing a urinalysis tests, not maintaining a job, and part of my sentence was to maintain a job, regain custody of my children and not use drugs.

And I think I brought this up to you in our conversation.

I had already violated probation when I was sentenced to probation in front of the judge, right?

Because when the judge sentenced me to probation and said, "Don't use drugs," I was literally in court high under the influence.

So I was already a violation, when I walked out of the courtroom.

But people don't understand that those violations.

So I had a drug problem.

I didn't commit a new crime.

I had a drug problem that nobody even addressed in any kind of way.

And when I failed the urinalysis test, it was a one way ticket pass, go, "Don't collect your 200.

"You're going to jail."

Still without anyone asking, "She failed a drug test, "does this person deserve to go to prison "because they failed a drug test "or do they deserve to get drug treatment "to address the underlying cause "of even their criminal activity?"

Again, one of the things I learned when I went to work at the federal government is the inability for drug courts and specialty courts to service black and brown communities.

They were very low numbers.

Caucasian communities were having better access to diversions from felony convictions than black and brown people.

And it was because of all the way they were recruiting some of the things that were going to it.

But I remember sharing with my colleagues, I never was offered drug court upon arrest.

It went straight to the crime.

No one says, "Why are you committing this crime, DeAnna?

"And have they actually identified "that there was a drug addiction for 10 years?"

I may have been even diverted from the felony conviction to get drug treatment.

- There's a thing happening in the world today in American society today, where a recognition that the crime bills of the past, the Three Strikes and You're Out, the war on drugs, a reassessment of all of that history in which it doesn't, it comes out not looking particularly good.

Like a bad set of policy decisions or a set of bad policy decisions, I should say.

And I wonder if the, in the same circumstances, if the same circumstances were to occur today, a younger DeAnna Hoskins appearing in in that courtroom, do you think you'd be offered the diversion program today?

- [DeAnna] I think it would be more of an assessment of me at pretrial upon arrest in some jurisdictions.

I do wonder how many people are getting offered that, but what we still see, and I'm just gonna be honest where I stay, Hamilton county, Cincinnati is different from Cleveland and Columbus and Akron, let's just be honest.

We're fighting bail reform right here with our own prosecutors.

So what that shows me and what I've shared with advocates in Cincinnati is if our prosecutor who is elected is not in supportive of pretrial, the presumption of innocence, that's a problem.

'Cause that's all bail is, does, actually ensure your returned to court.

But there's this presumption of innocence.

So when you say, would I have had that opportunity?

I'm not quite sure in this city, Cleveland probably, Columbus maybe, but when you have a prosecutor that's even fighting bail reform or a bail project that actually allows people who have a life to continue their life until the courts find them guilty, that's a real problem.

And that goes not to the criminal justice system, but as advocates, that goes to us, to educate our community on prosecutors work for us.

So we need to be elected our prosecutor not letting them walk in office.

- So DeAnna Hoskins, do you believe that sort of in the national picture things have improved on these issues, that we're on the right, that were at the beginning of the right track?

Or do you feel that some of these reforms are simply piecemeal and not enough?

- [DeAnna] So I'll give you a prime example.

Today is the first day that Juneteenth has been recognized as a national holiday, right?

And as black people, we should be happy.

But how can we be happy on what Juneteenth stands for?

And there is an exception clause in the 13th Amendment that still allows for legalized slavery within prison labor.

So tomorrow we're kicking off an in the exception clause campaign across the country focusing on the federal government which is part of our Roadmap as well.

We know Colorado has already ended that exception clause in their state.

And so we have state level campaigns, and we're launching a national campaign tomorrow.

So, but what it reminds me of is during the time of unrest, you have elected officials who come together to symbolically give black people something.

And while I commend Miss Opal Lee, who's been pushing for Juneteenth to be a national holiday for all these years, we're still not free so we really can't celebrate.

People will say, "What took Congress so long?"

Nothing took them so long.

They were forced to do it based on what happened last year.

So it's really symbolic.

We appreciate it, but we're still not free.

And the reason I say that is the John Lewis Voting Act on the same day that the president signed Juneteenth into law, our Congress dismantled the voting law important to formerly incarcerated people out of there.

Yeah, they left gerrymandering them.

So you gotta follow every piece of it to actually see what is really being given.

And what we saw last year is what the history has shown us.

Every time we think we got something, we moved through society.

And then all of a sudden, 15, 20 years it combust and we hit the streets, we demand change and they throw us crumbs.

I've been sharing what advocates, we cannot take our foot off the gas pedal, 'cause we're not taking crumbs anymore.

We want true liberation.

You gave us Juneteenth as a holiday, fine.

Now I need you to have the courage to end the exception clause in the 13th, to totally dismantle slavery.

On top of that, I need you to restore our voting rights.

- I'm gonna read the text of the 13th Amendment here, so that everybody knows what we're talking about.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, "except as punishment for crime, where of the party "shall have been duly convicted, "shall exist within the United States "or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

So it's that clause, that "Except as a punishment for crime," which continues to allow for the use of prison labor.

- [DeAnna] Hmm.

And guess who's the biggest consumer, the government.

They make our license plates, right?

They actually run the prisons.

Most people who actually have never worked in a prison, don't realize, yeah, you got correctional officers, you got case managers, you got unit managers, but who cuts the grass?

Who does the landscape?

Who does the laundry?

who does the cooking in the kitchen?

Who transports the patients back and forth to the infirmary?

Who cleans the infirmary or the individuals who live there?

So that's why when, if you ever knew someone working in a prison, they hate it when the prison went on lockdown, 'cause that meant all staff had to work in the kitchen just to feed the compound.

So the government itself is the biggest user and utilizer of prison slavery.

- You have spoken to a distinction between policy work and policy advocacy, between policy advocacy work and programmatic work.

JustLeadershipUSA focuses on policy advocacy and there are other organizations like Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries which we've mentioned before, that does programmatic work, helping returning citizens reintegrate into their communities and helping to prepare them not to recidivate.

Why is the policy work so important?

A lot of this, it's very intuitive, but I wanna ask you to kind of unpack it.

- [DeAnna] So, and I think you'll see there from Charles See work, right.

Charles created this unique program of people returning to the community to assist senior citizens in some way.

But there was some people who had certain crimes that couldn't be in those jobs.

So, there are other job markets that people with certain convictions can't be in.

The policy is what is stopping how people reintegrate and become successful.

So you can have a program all day focused on workforce development, focused on getting housing.

And people always run into barriers based on crimes that their clients or the people they're serving have actually encountered in some kinda way.

And I've always asked the question programs, and I'ma be honest, I don't think reentry is programs, I think reentry is a process, and programs help people navigate that process, around how to get to sustainable self fulfilling, productive members of society.

Policies block some of that things.

Policies block how people have access.

One of our legislation is the lifetime ban on drug offense for SNAP, TANF benefits.

Yeah, Ohio has waived out of it.

But if we get a governor who wants to rescind that waiver, everybody in the state of Ohio that has been convicted of a drug offense will no longer be eligible foR TANF and SNAP benefits.

But that's a policy that's kinda, if you're a person who's been convicted of a crime, there's something lingering over your head every time your elected official changes.

So policy supports programming, that's actually helping people reintegrate.

They go together.

It's not an either, or, you have to address both, because the more policies that could not be harmful to people, it gives better access to people who are reintegrating in the programs that are assisting them.

- What are you hearing from federal legislators and state legislators around the country about these items on your agenda?

It seems to me that there has been this shift.

I spoke before about the reassessment of the war on drugs, the understanding of the dynamics that led to mass incarceration of black and brown men in particular, but impact disproportionately impacting black and brown communities, both men and women and juveniles.

It does seem as if there is more of an appetite to consider serious policy reforms that some would characterize as progressive, things that would never have been considered even by Democrats, 20 or 30 years ago.

- [DeAnna] I totally agree with you.

I guess my critique of that, where the sentencing a juvenile to life without parole has been determined unconstitutional, right?

And what we're seeing, 50 and 60 year old men who were sentenced at 15 to 16 being released, especially in Pennsylvania.

We're seeing people like William Underwood who spent 33 years for a first time offense around drug trafficking in a federal system being released.

There's an appetite, but there's slow movement.

And my argument is, it's slow movement to undo it, but it was real quick movement to do it.

You stripped our liberty, you tore up our communities real quick with the 94 Crime Bill then came back with the 96 Bill, which actually started removing access to basic human needs such as food, shelter, clothing, and all of that.

But you're real slow, and even when you wanna give us our liberation and our freedom, you wanna piecemeal it to us.

And that's why our Roadmap is very bold.

I don't want you to, we didn't go into the 94 Crime Bill to start pulling out pieces for you to fix.

We said, "Repeal the 94 Crime Bill, don't piecemeal our freedom to try to fix the 94 Crime Bill.

"Repeal it, to undo in whole, as you took it in whole."

While you said you have that, you have, people don't wanna lose their political foothold.

People don't, people still, people are career politicians.

And they still, I can't appear too soft in this area, but I wanna challenge that Dan, because if it's people over politics, it's really not about your political position, it's about human dignity and seeing everyone as a human.

And if the policy that you're implementing is dehumanizing a segment of population in any kind of way.

So it does, when you say, "Except with the 13th Amendment clause," you're actually saying this dehumanizing thing of slavery that was abolished, it's still okay in this one situation.

And when you look at the historical aspect of incarceration, it resembled slavery.

You're in a cage.

You can be put in solitary confinement, you are forced to work or you're put in a cage.

You remember people being out on the field refusing to work, getting beat and being put segregated or whatever.

Prison replicates slavery in every aspect down to the uniform, to how many showers you can take, what you're gonna eat, when you can talk on the phone.

And not only that, not only is it still allowing for the slavery aspect around prison labor, we're also going to let corporations profit off of you as well even when you talk to your family.

And now we're even moving to 100% video visitation to even remove family unification.

- You've just done a little bit of shorthand about the telecom corporations making money on collect calls or calls from detention facilities, and then that connects to the whole world of fines, fees, and bail.

And I just wanna point out, I just want to say again, we're talking with DeAnna Hoskins, she's President of JustLeadershipUSA.

It's an eight year old advocacy organization, national advocacy organization working on reform, criminal justice reform and reform to laws and policies regarding communities, community members, our neighbors who are under incarceration and our neighbors who returned from incarceration back to the community.

And this is part of a series of conversations we've been doing over the last few years.

We talked with the bail project about a year ago.

We've talked with others about fines, fees and other aspects to this whole kind of Gordian knot of issues that really do need to be untangled if we are to be a more just society.

And if you have a question for DeAnna Hoskins, please text it to 330-541-5794.

If you're on Twitter, you can tweet that question to at the City Club and we will work it in.

This is the City Club Friday forum.

I'm Dan Moulthrop.

So, let's get to some questions from the audience DeAnna, you ready?

- [DeAnna] Yeah.

- I know you are.

"Statistics show that a number of incarcerated individuals "have been charged in connection with marijuana laws, "but in recent months there's been a legalization "of marijuana in many states.

"Considering this change, what do you think "is the next step in terms of re-sentencing "these individuals?"

- [DeAnna] Thank you for that question.

And we are a number one leader around the MORE Act being reintroduced on a federal level.

And here's our thing.

Those individuals who have been convicted of marijuana now that it's becoming legal, actually have to have those sentences expunged.

We don't think there should be a re-sentencing because it's no longer illegal.

And here's my cliche around that.

There is no way you can not expunge our records and then create laws to allow us to participate in the economic viability of that market.

If you look across the states that are legalizing marijuana, the first people they exclude is people who've been convicted of marijuana or drug trafficking in the world.

And I always say, we created the market.

Not only did we create the market, we've generated to show that actual demand for this.

So there is no way that we could sit back and watch a society that creates something for white men to get rich off of, for what black men have been going to prison for.

You have to allow us to operate.

And that was one of the things that I do commend Governor Cuomo for in New York, when I was living in New York, he would not sign the marijuana legalization because it excluded formerly incarcerated people.

And he was not willing to sign it until they were included to be able to participate in that economic market to be business owners as well.

- From the very practical standpoint... - [DeAnna] So, no, I don't think there should be a re-sentencing.

I think there should be an expungement.

- An expungement.

I was just gonna to say that from a very practical standpoint, those people who have been involved on a more long-term basis with the market for marijuana would seem to me to be experts in the field, whose practical experience ought to be sought after.

Another question for you from one of our listeners, "I'd like to ask Ms. Hoskins about mobilizing "the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission "of the United States Department of Labor "to educate employers about the guidance issued in 2012."

This is a very specific question, but I'm sure you can answer it.

"About the guidance issued in 2012 "regarding employers conducting an individualized assessment "of job applicants instead of blanket no hire policies "for people with criminal records.

"In my work with returning citizens, "I've found too many employers "are still not conducting individualized assessments."

- [DeAnna] Wow, thank you for that.

So part of that falls on us too as advocates in the community.

Totally agree with you, I understand I was hired within the federal government based on that policy.

My knowledge, skills and abilities got me to the interview, and it was an evaluation of my crime versus what I have done in the past.

What I saw when I was a part of the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, was when people get the courage to identify and report those employers who are still utilizing blanket policies, those employers are paying at settling out of court.

And what most people don't know, employers like BMW, Family Dollar, have settled out of court for utilizing those blanket policies.

But we as advocates have to educate, which is why JustLeadership focuses on educating advocates because it's intoxicating to jump on a bandwagon of a topic, but do people really understand the details of the topic?

Do they understand that your criminal record may or may not be blocking you from a job?

At what point do you know is blocking you from a job and it was your criminal record?

Once the conditional offer is there, are jobs still listing their jobs saying no felony convictions, no criminal backgrounds?

If so, that's a violation of the Civil Rights Act within itself just in the job posting from Department of Labor, but are we pulling together to start building and collectively filing complaints against those employers?

And we don't.

It's unfortunate and I'll say this, as black and brown people, we need a job.

I really don't have time to start keeping track of reporting people, but we have to if we wanna see the system change.

We have to identify those job postings that are saying no criminal backgrounds.

Identify those employers who are giving us conditional job employment offers and then rescinding it when the background check comes, and my conviction had nothing to do with the job.

We have to create a portal, a point of contact.

It could be the state or the reentry office within your county, has to be the reporting, who's gonna be the portal to collect that information, so that we can start filing those federal complaints against those employers around their processes 'cause they're actually discriminating.

We just haven't pulled it together, because once it reaches the federal government, we're seeing where some of those companies are settling out of court because they're being called on the carpet for it.

- That is a structural issue that seems very, very difficult to address, because as you just pointed out, I'm just kinda like digesting what you've just said.

But as you've pointed out, it requires the job seeker to file a complaint.

And as you, if you're seeking a job and you don't already have a job, you don't have time.

And if you do have a job you don't have time for that either.

You're just sort of moving on to try to find an opportunity that will work.

- [DeAnna] And that's what has allowed some of the practices and the harms before us, because we're in need of employment.

You didn't hire me.

I really don't have time to complain about why you didn't hire me 'cause I need to go find the employer who's gonna hire me 'cause I need a paycheck as soon as possible.

But we haven't built coalitions, reentry coalitions that empower and support our community, so that we can start building and transferring this information so that we can start building and collecting our power.

Part of building power and community, is educating the community to understand who is violating them, who is violating their civil rights and having a power to call them out in it.

But again, we've been so oppressed.

Do I even have time to report back to you of, hey, I went to this job and they didn't hire me because of my criminal background.

That just took 20 minutes.

I could have been on another interview.

So, how do we set those processes up?

And that's where the responsibility comes on us.

I always say, especially with reentry programs that focus on workforce, what are some of the questions you're having job seekers, like three questions after every interview, after every conversation that they can fill out to actually start talking to their job coach where we could start collecting some of that information that way.

We have to create the system 'cause the system is definitely not gonna be created for us.

- Another question for you, DeAnna Hoskins, "Do you have a comment "about Fair Chance Housing laws "that attempt to remove barriers "to rental housing that are related to criminal history?"

- [DeAnna] I do.

(chuckles) - [Dan] I'm sure you do.

(DeAnna laughs) - [DeAnna] Housing is a basic human need.

What does my criminal background have to do with me having safe access to safe housing?

And I think a lot of times people exclude people who have criminal background as being qualified or deserving to be safe, in some kinda way.

So I'll tell you what we did do here in Cincinnati and I know Cleveland was ahead of the game, 'cause we follow suit with Cleveland, even with our housing authority.

When I first became the director of reentry in Cincinnati, our housing authority had a policy that you couldn't apply for housing until five years after completion of your sentence.

And I remember going to riot.

I remember going to their board meeting and I wanted to ask the question of the board and the director of the housing authority to help me understand.

I served five years in prison.

I'm sentenced to five years parole.

You're telling me I then have to be five years homeless in the community, total of 10 'cause I did five on parole.

Now I gotta be off another five before I could get housing.

And nobody understood what I was talking about.

They was like, "No, that's not what we're saying."

That's exactly what this rule says.

This exact, and once I was able to explain that to the commission and the director, we were able to change that standard operating procedure back to three years from conviction.

So now that same person serving five years in prison just became eligible for housing.

After their third year in prison can actually apply to be on a wait list before they get out.

But how do we move that into the private market of landlord's, to not discriminate?

I'm a landlord myself, and I ask myself the question all the time, what crimes I'm I biased about that I wouldn't rent to?

And I have to be honest about that.

Who am I not comfortable renting to or am I not comfortable?

That's a chance you take as a landlord.

But I think we have to have these practices that don't allow.

One of the biggest things everybody's gonna say, is arson and individuals convicted of a sex offense.

'Cause your house is in the community, and you definitely don't want nobody to burn your house down.

But in reality, you looking at Ohio, we have unidentified sex offenses.

We've put predators into the same category as a level one.

So, when you say sex offender to anyone, for me I remember there was a time I immediately when, you had to either violate a child or harm a woman.

That's all I gave you credit for with that label.

Once I started working in the Department of Corrections and realized a college student public drunkenness actually out in a park, actually could get this label or different things.

I then started to realize how the system and the policies 'cause more harm on us being successful, because we put this overall label on people that's gonna scare people around housing and different things.

So I think we have to institute fair hiring, housing policies.

But I also I'm realistic, there's gonna be some limitations and then that's where we have to go back to the policy level at the state of how you even identify and classify people who have committed certain crimes.

- Another question for you, and I'm glad this came up because I wanted to ask it myself.

"Could you talk about your own journey?

"How did you move from recovery to this advocacy role?"

- [DeAnna] Of course I did not wake up one day or get released and walked out of the correctional facility and I was like, I'm gonna become an advocate.

No, I just wanted a job like everyone else.

I wanted to get my children back and I wanted to build a life, whatever that life was gonna look like.

And what I found out before I was arrested, again, I suffered with a drug addiction for over 15 years, addicted to crack cocaine, lost custody of my children and ended up serving time in a correctional base facility here in Hamilton county.

And one of the things I tell people is I didn't go to jail.

I was not convicted and I didn't have skills.

I had skills at the time data entry was popular.

I took it in high school, in the vocational class.

And then it's actually the employment that's sustained and supported my drug addiction.

But when I was released with that felony conviction, I could no longer work in that field because that field at the time, that's when we were still writing checks, and those checks remember at night, your check got processed through the data processing.

That's what data entry was.

I had a theft charge.

I could not go work in a financial institution again, even in data entry.

So now, my felony conviction had created a barrier to the skillset that I had to be able to be employable.

And I remember I applied at this one job.

They literally, based on my experience, wanted me to be a supervisor, in a check processing center.

And when the lady found out I had this felony conviction, she was floored.

And I'm sitting there and I'm talking to her, but she was like, "I'm sorry, we can't hire you."

And I remember asking her, 'cause I had to go see my probation officer.

I'm still on probation again and here I can't find a job and they're gonna violate me again 'cause part of my conditions is to have a job.

And when I asked her for that policy in writing, she couldn't produce it.

And I knew at that moment I was living and facing a system that was dependent on the person who was interviewing me.

So every job interview I went on, I asked for a copy of the policy and they couldn't produce it, it wasn't in writing.

So I started challenging it.

And I started challenging it publicly as a discriminatory practice of, and I remember going back to my parole officer and was like, how do you fight a system that has been empowered to determine what policy they're gonna use, based on a person with a criminal background, just based on whoever's sitting in that desk and in that position of power?

So I remember the next interview, and I like to share this story because I'm like, what did I just do?

The next interview I'm sitting there.

And I didn't walk into this interview with, oh my God, I need this job.

I walked into this interview of I'm finna challenge this, and I'm gonna cross my legs as if I'm empowered to challenge this.

And it was at Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati.

Now I know I can't work at a bank had I been convicted of a theft, but I needed to know if this policy at one of the largest banks in Cincinnati existed on paper.

Make it through the interview, make it through the second interview.

And we started talking, I said, oh, by the way, I've been convicted of a felony theft.

And she was like, "You can't work here."

And I was like, why not?

She was like, "Our policy won't allow it."

I said, can you show it to me in writing?

And they didn't have an HR policy in writing, and I remember sitting back in my chair crossing my legs saying, so you're telling me that you're pushing a policy that doesn't exist based on how you feel about a person with a criminal background.

And she said, "No, it's just the way it's always been."

I said, based on what, and based on who?

Who made the decision, that's who I need to talk to.

Nobody could answer my questions and I knew at that moment, if I didn't fight for myself and expose the harms that were being done to us or to me, 'cause I didn't think about y'all at the time.

It was just all about me, I just needed a job.

If I can't expose the harms being done to me, I wasn't gonna have a shot in this.

And I'ma be honest with you.

I didn't wanna work in a restaurant.

I didn't wanna clean and mop hallways.

I had a skill set and just because I had made this mistake is that what, is what everyone was funneling me into.

So my policy, my advocacy started with advocating for myself, and then I would talk to someone else and they'll be like, "Well, this happened to me," and I'll be like, well, this is what you do.

You go challenge them, you do this.

And it just started to build from there.

I didn't, I was not trying to save y'all.

I was just trying to save me.

- We are talking with DeAnna Hoskins.

That is such a story.

DeAnna Hoskins is the President of JustLeadershipUSA.

They advocate for policy reform in the areas of criminal justice and community re-entry and so forth.

If you have a question for her, as your City Club Friday forum.

So this part of the program is powered by your questions.

You should text your question to 330-541-5794 or tweet it at the City Club, we will work it in.

DeAnna Hoskins, collateral sanctions, and you might have to explain what that refers to.

"Collateral sanctions not only considerably shrink "the number of jobs available to Ohioans with a conviction, "it also shrinks the pool of workers available to employers.

"With such demand for employees specifically "in service industry sectors today, has there been more "of a push to remove these barriers to jobs?"

- [DeAnna] I will say yes.

That is where you get... - First of all, explain what collateral sanctions, what that refers to please.

- [DeAnna] So collateral consequences are the unintended consequences that goes with a felony conviction.

And I always like to say, when the judge hits the gavel and sentence you to incarceration, there are other things that actually come along with that gavel.

It's gonna identify where you can work at, where you can live at, some of the things you have access to.

Can you even accompany your children on field trips and chaperoning them once you're convicted of a felony offense once you're back in the community?

So those are the unintended consequences that no one was aware of, that this criminal background was gonna give a person.

I think there is an elimination of collateral consequences in certain things and that goes back to that original question around the EEOC's regulation or memo around what employers should do, how an employer should evaluate a person with a criminal background.

They definitely should have, the EEOC said they should use the assessment to either identify the nature of the person's crime related to the job, how long it has been, and what that person has done since then.

What this was reminding me of, is I always challenged the judge who sentenced me.

I always questioned him about if you truly don't believe in Corrections and Rehabilitation one, why the hell are you sentencing people there to get rehabilitated and corrected?

Because only for them to come out and nobody wants to give them a shot as if they'd been corrected or rehabilitated.

So I'm having no understanding of what the sentence was supposed to do if it wasn't to be a punishment only.

And not only is it gonna be a punishment while you're serving time, it's gonna be a punishment when you come out 'cause society is gonna say, "You can't work here.

"You can't live here."

So, I'm always questioning why do we call this system Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, when nobody believes in that, who sentences us there, and our laws damn sure don't believe in it because it holds us hostage once we we're released.

- Another question for you too here DeAnna, to circle back on the question about expunging or re-sentencing marijuana convictions.

"First off the listing rights, "I don't think marijuana convictions should ever "have been as strict as they are or were, or have been.

"In fact, I don't think marijuana should ever "have been made illegal, but what do you say "to proponents of that, of illegalization who believed "that those individuals that committed the crime "during the time it was illegal "still committed a crime knowingly at that time "and should serve that sentence out because of that fact?"

- [DeAnna] Well, what we also know is that we have people who are serving life sentences for marijuana.

And we know people who have committed murder who don't get a life sentence.

So one, marijuana laws were so harsh which go back in history, alcohol prohibition laws were actually very strict until we made it legal.

Again, whatever black people are making money off of illegally, another population have found a way to make it legally and become rich and block us out from accessing it.

We're seeing it right now with marijuana.

Those proponents here as an advocate, I don't fight, everybody, one, everything is not a fight.

So as an advocate, one of the things that we teach or that we know, is that people are on a communication scale from one to five.

Once, I'm preaching to the choir.

They're on board, they get it.

Fives, I'm never gonna change their minds.

So guess what I'm gonna do, never gonna waste my time on them.

My time is to focus on the three and the fours who are straddling the fence.

And actually keeping that focus, you will waste more time focusing on fives who I don't care what you do, you will never change their mind.

So why be the truck stuck in the mud, spinning your tires, waste your time on the threes and fours, that actually are straddling the fence to get them over to your twos and ones and keep it moving?

You have to know where your fight is.

Everybody's entitled to their opinion and everybody comes to this table based on their experience.

And my job is to respect the position that you have.

As a leader, I have to respect where you are and I have to move on.

I don't have to argue with you 'cause just as you believe, I have a belief too.

This is my thing.

It's something else that you do.

And I think as an advocate in this field, and as a leader, once you identify how to respect everybody's position, you get much further 'cause even that opposition while they may not agree with you, they'll respect you and what you do.

- DeAnna Hoskins, final question for you from our audience.

"What can allies do to help to support?"

- [DeAnna] I love this question.

Because I don't need allies, I need accomplices.

- [Dan] What's the difference.

- [DeAnna] So what an accomplice is... An ally is just someone who's gonna speak and yell "Black lives matter" as well in the street with me.

But what an accomplice is gonna do is kick open the doors of city hall where I can't access and bring me with them.

An accomplice is gonna kick open that door and actually bring me into that room with them and say, "I need you to talk to this advocates "who have lived to experience on this issue."

Accomplices work to get to the accomplishment of what you're trying to do.

JustLeadership says, "Directly impact the people "who have to be at the table of policy decision, "not in a performative way."

Don't put us on your board to say, "I have a person with lived experience."

Have a person with lived experience in a leadership decision making position, that their voice is seen and heard.

Allies are gonna put on a t-shirt with me and walk down this middle of the street with me.

Again, accomplices are gonna walk up on the stage, grab the mic and bring it back to me so that I could speak.

- Do you have accomplices in Congress right now?

- [DeAnna] I do.

(chuckles) You have it, and I shared this with an advocate yesterday.

Most of you may have heard of Desmond Meade.

Desmond led the restoration of 1.4 million people with criminal backgrounds in voting in Florida.

And we were talking about HR One.

He was in DC yesterday, and he called me because of the dismantling of the John Lewis Voting Right Act that had happened by Democrats.

And we were talking and I said, you know, sometimes I think we've been addressing this wrong.

And he said, "What do you mean?"

I said, we're pushing for a legislation that always puts us in this battle.

They give, we take, we take, they give, you do this back and forth.

And I met this lady, who's the most humblest quietest person in Congress that nobody even mentions her name.

And once I met her and some a lobbyist and accomplice introduced me to her, I found out she's the most powerful person in Congress.

So I started looking around states and I was like, the person who sits in the seats in the states are the most powerful, but the less hurt.

So this lady explained to me from a congressional perspective of, "DeAnna, you know you can always "write legislation and get into a fight on the House Floor.

"But one thing that always has to happen at a federal "and a state level is government has to be funded."

I was like, yeah, the budget has to be passed.

She said, "So why not put your language "into appropriations that fund the government "and just get your pass that way "versus going into a fight with everybody else?"

- You didn't just say that.

You didn't just say that.

- [DeAnna] I know.

(DeAnna laughs) - DeAnna, we're out of time.

We're out of time, but that lesson is very important and that's exactly what's happened in Ohio with legislation heading into the, getting into the budget.

But please stay on.

Please stay on.

I wanna talk to you after we're done.

I have to wrap this up right now.

DeAnna Hoskins, what a pleasure to have you on the City Club forum.

- [DeAnna] Thank you.

- It's been wonderful.

Thank you also to our listeners and all of you for joining us to talk about criminal justice reform with DeAnna Hoskins, President of JustLeadershipUSA.

As I said at the outset, our forum is the inaugural Charles R. See forum on Re-entry presented in partnership with Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries.

And our forum today is also part of the Criminal Justice series that we present in partnership with the Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation, big thanks to you and members and sponsors and donors who support our mission to create conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

We have a bunch coming up next week.

We also have some coming up in person on Public Square starting on Tuesday, July 6th.

We hope you'll join us for that, and we will be back in person at the City Club later on in July.

You can find out more, keep track at cityclub.org.

I'm Dan Moulthrop.

Our forum is now adjourned.

(bell chimes) (upbeat music) - [Presenter] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to CityClub.org.

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