Robert Reich on the Netroots Nation event

[JDPriestly]

83. I appreciate your answer.

What would you do to stop the mass incarceration which does amount to slave labor and the police brutality?

I have made the suggestion of a special regulatory agency in the federal government under the auspices of the Justice Department that would require a report of and independently investigate every claim of police use of excessive force whether it ended in death of a subject or not.

As for mass incarceration, there are various crimes at issue here.

First, there are nonviolent drug offenses. Clearly we need a national program for drug rehabilitation that works better than what we have. I don't know how it would work. We have lots of drug counseling and 12-step programs, but we need much more. In the long term, I think that better pre-school education that stresses helping children develop the strength to resist impulses if it could be done in a non-repressive, healthy way would be good. And, by the way, I do not think that drug abuse is necessarily more prevalent in Black communities than in other communities. I suspect that the policing of the streets in Black areas is more vigilant on this issue. I live in a Hispanic area, and we have a gang injunction that makes arrests far more likely. We need some solution other than gang injunctions. We don't want gang violence, but we don't want our children to be treated as suspects just because of their color or ethnicity.

Also, I visited juvenile centers at one point in my life -- fairly regularly. We need to completely upend and redo our juvenile justice and incarceration system. Teenagers are still children. They often don't understand what their incarceration means. I believe that California finally did away with the solitary confinement of kids (yes the SHU), but let's face it we don't know how to deal with children who do illegal things. We don't have the research, the information, to work with them on alternative behavior, and they often commit "crimes" on impulse because they don't understand their choices. (And what is more, if rich bankers can commit fraud on our entire financial system and they don't go to jail, why are we jailing a 15-year-old for stealing an I-Pad that other kids have and his parents can't afford. I'm not approving of stealing I-Pads. I'm looking for alternative ways to deal with young people who commit crimes.

Also, why not have committees of black representatives from the community -- pastors, teachers, etc. -- who work with judges, prosecutors, public defenders and social workers to try to find out why so many black people especially black men get arrested. Is the rate of criminal activity really higher in the Black community? Are economic factors like high unemployment playing a part? Or are the police focusing on Black communities? Is there actually just as much crime in white communities and is it overlooked? What are the real numbers on this?

And then, why don't we hire more Black police officers? Especially in Black communities? And more Hispanic officers in Hispanic communities? I'm not suggesting that officers be assigned according to their race. I'm suggested wiser hiring practices for all communities.

Do you have any concrete ideas like these? Because it is not enough to say Black Lives Matter. We have to think of discrete actions we could take personally and at a political level to make sure that Black lives really do matter as they should.

We need concrete proposals. What do you see in your community, in your city, in your state and in the nation that can be done to respond to this problem.