- (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.

- The Legislature's efforts to change the criminal justice system, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

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

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by folks working on the criminal justice system, especially up at the legislature.

We'll start with London Lamar, Democratic state senator.

Thanks for being here again.

- Thank you.

- Bill Gibbons, who is president of the Memphis-Shelby Crime Commission and other capacities, thank you for being here again.

- Glad to be here.

- Brent Taylor is a Republican state senator.

Thank you for being here again.

- Thank you.

I appreciate it.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

I'll start with the two senators.

We'll go with Senator Lamar first here, and we'll talk about specific proposals that are going through.

We can debate a nd talk about those as best we can in 26 minutes.

But a bigger picture question, when you look at the many proposals that are being put forward, many by Senator Taylor and crime is a big issue nationally, it's a very big issue in Memphis and in the state.

Do you look at it through a lens that this is about punishing?

This is about protecting.

This is about deterring or rehabilitating or is it all that and more?

- So when I think about solving crime, I think about all of those things.

You need every single one of those factors in order to have a comprehensive approach to eradicating crime and not just a short-term reduction in crime, but we think about the long-term reduction in crime in the city of Memphis to help us grow together.

And so what there needs to be is an investment in the preventative measures before we even, when we think about long term we need to make sure that we're doing things on the front end to prevent people from committing crime in the first place.

And there's been serious disinvestments in Shelby County over time and time by the Tennessee legislature and other entities.

Now, no doubt about it, that we have to take a tougher approach to hold people accountable who are breaking the law, who are threatening public safety, who are preventing us to have more investments in economics and, and development in this city.

We have to make sure that we are dealing with the issue.

It's no secret and we can't run away from it.

But what I'm looking at is there is a holistic approach because we have the resources at the state legislature to do all of those things that you named.

But what I'm seeing is more so on a punishment approach when we have the resources to do everything.

And that's what my legislative platform is about, it's about taking a tough on crime approach to support efforts that others put to do that, but also investing in preventative measures to make sure we're creating a long term, safer Shelby County for all people.

- Same question to you, those sort of categories, and you can add other ones of punishment, deterrent, rehabilitation, prevention, where do you come down?

And you've put forward many proposals.

You've been very much out front on this with changes to the criminal justice system as they impact Shelby County and other places.

- Right.

And none of the things that I have put forward are really a silver bullet that's going to solve our crime issue.

But it's a piece of it.

And I think Senator Lamar is correct.

I think it takes a holistic approach.

And but from where I sit on the Judiciary Committee, my focus on the Judiciary Committee is to focus on crime and punishment.

There are other senators who sit on other committees and certainly preventative measures and restorative justice type issues are dealt with in those committees that I happen to not be a member of.

But it's also I think it's important for me in Memphis to make sure we get this in the right order.

And that is that the restorative justice schemes that others are talking about, particular in the DA's office, those will take a generation to really play out and to see the results of that.

We have an acute crime crisis right now, and so we have to deal with that.

And I think the best way to deal with that, unfortunately, is to be tough on crime.

And we're going to have to make some examples out of people to serve as a deterrent to others so they don't go down the wrong path.

- Tough on crime for you means what?

- Well, tough on crime is not just for me to decide that, it's for our community.

And I think our community is demanding that people who commit crimes, that they are arrested, they're put in jail, they have appropriate bail set, and if they're convicted, they go to prison.

- One more for you.

The disinvestment that Senator Lamar talked about, there's been a disinvestment by the state legislature.

Would you agree with that in the you and I'll let her describe go further into what those disinvestments are.

But even if you're not on that committee, I mean, ultimately those things could come to the state Senate and you could be voting on investments in child care, investments in school, investments in diversion and other programs for youth.

Do you do you support those?

- Yeah.

So, if there been a disinvestment by the state that has caused our crime problem, simply returning those investments is not going to eradicate the crime problem because it's gotten out of control.

We have to have these these tough on crime measures so that the disinvestment that we've had, as we begin to correct those that that we, you know, they'll be able to have the long term consequences of keeping crime down once we bring it down.

But just those, reinstituting those investments is not going to bring our crime down.

- Let me give you a little more time.

Apologies to our other guests.

Senator Lamar, when you hear state senator talk about tough on crime, intervening, you know, punishing people and making examples of them, do you, how do you respond to that part of the the complex formula here?

- I think history and data evidence has shown that that approach doesn't work.

And so when we passed a Three Strikes law from the '90s, a tough on crime laws, initiatives from the federal governments, we see now how terrible those opportunities, those policies were when it comes to looking at these communities now, there's extreme poverty.

There are broken family households.

The the educational attainment of families impacted by those who have been put in prison is showing that they are redoing the process, going back to prisons as generational families, going into the justice system.

What we do know and data shows is that investing in education works.

Raising the minimum wage so families can afford to work one job and then be able to take care of their families be involved in their kids lives.

Those things work.

When we see that our school system has been underfunded, we know that schools that are underfunded contribute to a school to prison pipeline.

We know that if we don't provide adequate housing for people, it contributes to violent crime.

Data, there's no piece of evidence of data is going to tell me anything different.

And so when we don't follow what we know works, then all we're doing is repeating the cycle.

Tough on crime without an investment in preventative measures means you're going to continue to have a prison population of people going in and out, in and out, in and out.

- Let me bring in Bill Gibbons, along with being head of the Memphis-Shelby County Crime Commission, you're a former Shelby County D.A., head of Tennessee Public Safety.

You've been involved in the criminal justice system for many decades and you've seen things back to I don't know that you're ever on the federal system with the three strikes, but, you know, you are around that right, in this.

When you look at this balance that lots of people come to this table and talk about that, yeah, we have to lock up the really, really bad people, but we also have to prevent crime through investments.

What sort of, let's go to the investment side.

What sort of investments in people have helped prevent crime or recurring crime or recidivism?

- Well, first of all, I want to agree with both of the senators.

It's not an either/or situation.

We have to invest in prevention, intervention and accountability or suppression.

It's all three of those.

And in terms of prevention, we need to put more funding into efforts such as Boys and Girls Clubs, Memphis Athletic Ministries, efforts like that that are very, very important in our community.

At the other end of the spectrum, we've also got to do a better job of holding individuals accountable.

When you think about it, if you incapacitate someone through incarceration, that person cannot be out committing more crimes.

So in and of itself that's going to have a positive impact, and it can serve as a deterrent to others if they see that individuals who commit crimes will be held accountable.

So it's really, it's really both.

And I get a little frustrated that a lot of people see it as either/or.

We need to we need to do both.

- Bill Dries.

- Senator Taylor, you talked about restorative justice schemes, as you put it.

Do you think restorative justice programs work?

- I think they work, but only after we have brought the crime rate down through aggressive police tactics where we catch criminals, we put them in jail, we set a appropriate amount of bail, and when they are convicted, they serve time.

Right now, we don't have that.

We have a revolving door at 201 Poplar.

The police arrest them, before the police can finish their paperwork, the defendant is already out on the street.

We have a we have a bail calculator that is an ability-to-pay calculator that essentially asks the defendant how much money they have in their pocket and they're able to make bail and they're out on the street again.

And so the restorative justice, I think, can work.

But that is the second part of this, I think, two-part equation.

We have to suppress crime, bring it down to a manageable level.

Then we can invest in the restorative justice effort to stem the long term effects of crime and and really begin to get at the root causes.

I've often said, you know, if I drop right now with a heart attack and they take me to the hospital, they're not going to talk to me about the long term consequences of my health style choices.

They're going to talk to me about fixing my heart and getting it to where it is stable, and then they can talk to me about the long term consequences of my decisions.

- So one of your bills requires district attorneys general to disclose if they're receiving any financing from groups.

And the one that comes to mind immediately is Just City.

What does that contribute to the discussion here about crime?

- Right.

First of all, Just City, it is my understanding, does not have a contract or an MOU with the district attorney's office.

So this bill will not even impact Just City.

But to your point, there are groups that it will.

Justice Innovation Lab is one.

The other is Vera Institute of Justice.

These groups, Bill, have come in to the district attorney's office and they have partnered with our district attorney to try to accomplish that which they can't accomplish legislatively.

They cannot get a bill passed through the legislature that eliminates cash bail, but they can come in through lawsuits, threats of lawsuits, acquiescence of a compliant D.A.

They have come in and they do training sessions with the ADAs to talk about Lord knows what.

But I can assure you it's not about continuing our cash bail, because if you look at these groups, they all have a stated goal of eliminating cash bail.

This community does not want cashless bail.

This community wants there to be cash bail, a cash bail that will ensure that the defendant shows back up to court and that ensures that the community is safe.

And that's the type of cash bail system we need.

We don't need a system where people are arrested and they put right back out on the street without any skin in the game.

- Senator Lamar, in your community, in your state Senate district, what is the view of cash, bail?

- So I think it's, we need to make it very clear that our D.A.

campaigned on the idea of reforming the bail system and talking about these issues and the county elected him to the district attorney seat.

So the overwhelming majority of people in this county elected a D.A.

who wants to take a restorative approach while also continuing to be tough on crime.

He made it very clear in everything that he said and the people decided to elect him to that seat, because they agreed with it.

And so when we think about the bail system, the constitution's set up so that bail system works for all people.

Again, we're forgetting that you're innocent until proven guilty and the judges and the judicial commissioners are the ones who are setting the bail.

So I think that right now our conversation really needs to be focused on those who actually have direct input or direct power on the bail system, which is our judicial commissioners.

Now, we want to entertain the conversation whether judicial commissioners should be setting bail and should be left in the hand of judges, I'm willing to entertain that.

But our D.A.

's job is to prosecute.

His job is not to set bail.

Our D.A.

campaigned on taking a multi initiative approach to reducing crime.

It is not his job to just be tough on crime.

It's his job to help foster conversations of how we can prevent crime in the first place.

How we can intervene in crime, and how we're going to continue to hold bad people accountable.

In the city of Memphis and the Shelby County want to see all of those things, all of those things.

Again, we're here right now because of disinvestment and soft on crime policies implemented by Republicans in the legislature.

Since they've been in office, they have reduced protections around guns, and now guns is one of the main issues that's ravaging our community.

Our D.A., both Republican and Democrat, our mayor, our police chief, have all asked the legislature to to put in policies that are going to make it harder for people to get guns who should not have guns.

And the Republican legislature have ignored all of those initiatives.

Just this week, we had a bill that would close a loophole on you can't sell a gun to a felon, but you can actually give a gun to a felon.

And they voted that down.

And so, again, I think this is all circling around, not being held accountable, that you're just as guilty to contributing to the increase in crime than anybody else.

- And let me just say one thing about the DA's and tough on crime, The Daily Memphian.

It's a publication, maybe y'all have heard of it.

They had an article about the DeSoto County district attorney and how he was getting tough on criminals coming out of Memphis down to DeSoto County.

As someone who owned multiple businesses in DeSoto County for a number of years, I can tell you that approach works.

Their community is much safer than Shelby County.

It's because they have a tough on crime district attorney.

If you go down there and commit a crime, he's going to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law and put you in prison.

If we had that approach here, I can assure you we would bring down the crime rate in Shelby County.

- Haven't we had that before, though?

And yet we still have a crime problem?

I don't know.

Have we had that before?

I mean, I remember Bill Gibbons had that.

And when he was district attorney and he actually promoted you commit a crime with a gun, you get all the time.

When they were promoting that, I believe he will say the crime stats came down.

It was a safer community.

When they let up on the advertising of that, it went back up.

- But the laws have also changed since you were D.A.

and since you were in the state.

- Right.

- Gun laws specifically.

- And luckily, - Well, the gun laws have been weakened.

Our sentencing laws have been improved.

So it's kind of a combination of both.

- Sentencing laws around gun violations?

- Around violent crimes.

Now we have truth in sentencing.

So it's been it's been a combination.

But when I was D.A., we had, as Bill Dries knows, because he's been around for forever.

We had a no plea bargaining policy for violent crimes.

So once an individual was indicted for a violent crime, we were not going to plea bargain that case unless there was an ethical or legal reason.

For example, if you had the wrong person or something like that.

But I do think that had a positive impact.

Word was out on the street that individuals are going to be held accountable if they commit violent crimes.

And during a five-year period from about 2007 through 2011, we had about a 25% reduction in our violent crime rate.

So it wasn't just because of that policy, it was also because of some things the police department was doing.

But taken taking all of that together, it did have a positive impact.

- So much of this discussion and we've had a number of these discussions at this table with different, different players, and that's what we usually wind up with is the anecdotal versus what the statistics say about this.

And we looked at six months, the last six months of the old bail system, the first six months of the new bail court, and found that the number of people who were released on bail actually dropped in terms of repeat offenses during the first six months.

- But if I can address that, I think two things.

One, they have to be captured, arrested for that second offense.

Just because they didn't get caught doesn't mean they're not committing the offense, number one.

Number two, the crime stats does not take into account the number of crimes that are dismissed by the district attorney's office.

If it's dismissed, it's not counted in those statistics.

So, look, the people who came out with those statistics have an interest in the outcome.

It's a Decarserate Memphis Group.

It's Just City.

They all promoted this bail room and the standing bail order.

And then they came along and came out with the statistics to back up what they had already put in place.

And so I question the statistics.

Again, I could come out with some data that would probably prove the other way, but they wouldn't believe my data.

And I don't believe theirs is worth listening to as well.

- But wasn't the judgment, though, in making the agreement to go to the bail court that the folks who were going to sue were probably going to carry the day in court.

- I don't.

First of all, I don't believe that they were going to sue, and I don't believe that they would carry the day in court.

That same group went to the Davidson County district attorney with that same threat of a lawsuit.

And I spent three hours with Glenn Funk back in January, who's the D.A.

in Davidson County.

And he said that they brought that same threat of a lawsuit.

They were able to negotiate a much better bail system in Davidson County that we have here in Shelby County.

He was shocked, Bill.

He was shocked at what we're doing here in Shelby County, the way we have a revolving door at 201 Poplar.

I would much rather have us say to Shelby County, we're going to duplicate what they're doing in Davidson County in terms of bail.

And by the way, Glenn Funk is no conservative Republican.

- Let me let me take a moment here to say that this is brings up the whole thing, that every time we talk about crime and criminal justice and policing, the data set is not agreed upon.

And it is a crazy situation.

And I think that you and I, we've all talked about it.

I don't know if I've talked to Senator Lamar about it, but no one has the same data.

And it is really kind of this is my editorial and public service message that we can't have this conversation.

I had Cardell Orrin and Natalie McKinney, who are much more on the kind of they're not part of Decarcerate Memphis, I want to put them there, but they're more on that side of things and they don't trust the data at all.

And it's hard to disagree with them when all the data sets are so imperfect.

But let me bring in Senator Lamar on part of this, and I'm curious how you're- You talked a little bit about when your constituents see, as Bill said, there are anecdotes and we can all point to anecdotes or recent anecdotes, someone out on bail.

The situation is unclear.

A terrible thing happens.

I assume your constituents are upset and scared and that you hear from that.

Or maybe it's a different it's not the kind of I want to say we're having an academic conversation.

It's very pragmatic conversation.

But in the end, there's this thing of how in the world could someone, even one person, let alone more than one person with repeat offenses who's accused of a violent offense, be released on a small amount of bail?

What are your constituents say in those anecdotal situations?

- Well, the majority of constituents in our county don't really understand the process because it is a very complex process.

The first and foremost, my goal is to educate them on the process and who to hold accountable.

And when we think about someone being let out on a low number of bail, that is the judges and the judicial commissioners who are setting that bail and they can set a bail that's so high that someone can't get out.

So there are tools in the tool box to keep folks who commit serious crimes in prison.

And it is up upon our judicial commissioners and our judges to do just that.

But when I think about people in my community, of course, they want a short-term fix to crime.

I have Parkway Village, Orange Mound, Hickory Hill, many of the communities that have the higher crime rates are in my district and I am working very hard to push forth policies that is going to help reduce crime.

But at the same time, my constituents come to me ask why don't we have anything for the kids to do?

Why are all of these shopping centers closed in my neighborhood?

We can't find no jobs.

Why do our school building looks like this?

Where do we need, we need more teachers.

They see the disinvestment every time they drive to a red light where all they see are gas stations and beauty supply stores on every corner.

But there's no investment in parks.

Our schools are lacking resources.

The infrastructure is falling down.

They know why their neighborhood is bad because they're living it every day.

So their expectation to me is how are we going to hold folks accountable but also champion more investment in our community?

- Senator Taylor, I mean, it's a Republican majority in the state Senate, in the state House, the governor.

Does Senator Lamar's argument resonate with your colleagues, your Republican colleagues?

- Well, in terms of bail, going back to that for a moment-- - Let's do the investment part.

- She mentioned bail, though.

She said, well, judges have the authority to set a bail high enough that they can't get out.

Actually, they don't because it is unconstitutional to set an excessive bail.

That's why this constitutional amendment that Republicans are putting forward is so critically important to add to the Constitution, certain offenses that are that have the potential to be unbailable because a judge just can't arbitrarily set a bail so high that they can't get out of jail because the federal Constitution says you can't have excessive bail.

In terms of the disinvestment, much of that disinvestment that she is referencing to, and I agree with her, schools are in bad shape.

We don't have parks.

We don't have all the things that a good, thriving, healthy community have.

But it's not necessarily because of a state disinvestment.

It's in disinvested from the local government, from Memphis city government, and not putting in the resources that they need, county government, not putting the resources that they need into education and parks and all the things that she mentioned.

So, yes, I agree that that there should be more investment, but I think that should come at the local level.

- I would disagree with that.

I think the first and foremost, the biggest thing that the legislature is championing to this year is a $1.6 billion tax break for corporations.

And what we know is there's going to be after every year that's $400 million less in the state budget to do something that could be an investment in parks.

It could be increaing the minimum wage, it could be more capital improvements for infrastructure in communities.

We do, we are responsible and we can.

Or this year, when we talk about we're giving vouchers to already folks who have resources to go to private schools.

That's public dollars going to private institutions.

Again, that money could be used for extended after school care, improving the literacy scores, giving teachers another pay raise.

We have the money to do it and we're choosing not to.

So I would definitely disagree that it's just on the locals.

It's all of our responsibility.

We took an oath to help all communities in the state of Tennessee, and the fact that the Republican majority doesn't feel like they should do that based on the policies that they're championing, I think is the reason why crime and other challenges we're having in our city are occurring.

- But let me say the $1.5 billion tax cut she referred to.

That is not a $1.5 billion tax cut that Republicans decided to give to the corporations.

That is a result of us being challenged in court that states that we have been over collecting our franchise an excise tax.

So we're going to be required to make those refunds, not because we want to give a tax cut.

We'd prefer to keep that money.

- But you could come back and increase other taxes and pay for more things?

You could do that?

- We've not gotten to that point yet.

We're still trying to figure out how we're going to make that make that refund.

- Well, we've got just a minute left.

I stepped on Bill Dries.

- Do I have time to weigh in on the bail issue?

What is it?

Go ahead.

- On the bail issue, we just need to follow the law.

Three points.

Number one, constitutionally bail cannot be excessive.

Number two, under state law, there are two overriding goals in setting bail, public safety and ensuring that the defendant shows up in court.

And there are nine factors to help interpret those goals.

One of those factors is financial condition.

But somehow that factor has morphed into the notion of affordability in Shelby County.

That is not the law.

And in fact, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals has rejected that argument.

- Okay, we are out of time.

I appreciate everyone.

I thought it was a very good debate.

Thank you so much.

We will have you back.

We'll keep talking.

You can tune in and listen to these people at the state legislature site as they talk through these issues.

And there'll be much more going forward as the session continues for the next few months.

But that is all the time we have this week.

We've done many shows on criminal justice over the last few months.

You can get all those at WKNO.org, search behind the headlines on YouTube.

Thanks very much and we'll see you next week.

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