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[MUSIC PLAYING] GARY EICHTEN: And good afternoon. Welcome to a special edition of Midday here on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary Eichten. This afternoon, we're broadcasting live from the Sabathani Community Center in South Minneapolis, where a forum on racial disparities in the Minnesota criminal justice system is underway. Raw statistics make it clear that such disparities do exist. An African-American in Minnesota is 21 times more likely to end up in prison than a White person. That's the biggest disparity in the nation.

Here's another statistic that catches your eye. In 1999, over half of all African-American males in Hennepin County between the ages of 18 and 30 were arrested. Over half of them. Add to that the fact that Blacks are far more likely to be stopped and searched than Whites and more likely to get a harsher sentence for the same crime, and the raw statistics seem to tell a pretty disturbing story, one where the civil rights of individuals are being violated, and community respect for the criminal justice system is being undermined.

What is less clear is why there is such a disparity and what, if anything, should be done about it. And that's why we're here at Sabathani today as part of our series this week, The Color of Justice. And a sort of Public Radio's Civic Journalism Initiative has brought together 40 citizens from communities most affected by this disparity to talk among themselves and formulate a series of questions for the panel of officials that's joined us today.

By the end of the hour, we do not expect to solve this problem, but we do hope to foster further discussion of the issue and perhaps come up with some ideas on how to make some progress toward a solution. So let's meet our panel and get started. Joining us today is DFL State Senator Jane Ranum, the chair of the Minnesota Senate Crime Prevention Committee, and Republican State Representative, Rich Stanek, the chair of the Minnesota House Judiciary Finance Committee. Senator Ranum is on leave from her job as a Hennepin County prosecutor.

Representative Stanek is a Minneapolis Police inspector. Both sponsored racial profiling legislation at the Capitol last spring. Also with us is Saint Paul Police Chief, Bill Finney and Hennepin County District Court Judge Tanya Bransford, a member of the committee charged with implementing the recommendations of the state Supreme Court's task force on racial bias.

Hennepin County Public Defender, Leonardo Castro is here, as is Minnesota Department of Corrections Commissioner, Sheryl Ramstad Hvass. Minnesota Public Radio's Leonard Witte and Jason Schafer are handling audience questions. So let's get started. Len.

LEONARD WITT: Thanks. This morning we worked on some questions with our group for about two hours, and Richard Bell was going to start out with the first question.

RICHARD BELL: Thank you. My question is directed to Chief Finney and Representative Stanek. And as a result of the findings of racial profiling, what mandatory ongoing training will be provided to police administrators and officers in the areas of cultural competency and cultural sensitivity as it relates to serving poor people, communities of color and economic diverse populations? And what will be done to assure the implementation of the training?

GARY EICHTEN: Chief Finney.

BILL FINNEY: Yes. Thank you for the question. The St Paul Police Department entered into an agreement with the NAACP Saint Paul Chapter, and as a result of that agreement, we have instituted training. Our in-service training, which began this fall and is ongoing as we speak, involves the NAACP and the St Paul Urban League in the training of our officers to those issues.

GARY EICHTEN: Representative Stanek.

RICH STANEK: Thank you. Well, the issue of racial profiling and training and community and cultural diversity is one that we spent a lot of time on in discussion this past legislative session. And as you know, we did pass some legislation dealing with racial profiling. I think first and foremost, it was important to note that the legislature and law enforcement committee acknowledged that racial profiling does exist on a somewhat a basis, not systemic statewide, but on individual case-by-case basis.

Police Chiefs like Chief Finney and Chief Olson and others have done a good job dealing with that issue within their own local police departments. From the statewide perspective, though, at the statewide response, we put into place mandatory training and policy for each law enforcement agency in Minnesota. We talked about diversity and recruitment of law enforcement officers statewide to be more reflective of their communities. We talked about data collection and a public awareness campaign.

We put in place a racial profiling advisory committee using the communities of color and other stakeholders in the criminal justice community to come together to discuss some of these issues and give some guidance and advice to the Department of Public Safety to move forward with ending the practice of racial profiling in Minnesota.

GARY EICHTEN: What happens after an officer goes through all the training, though, and there are problems? What happens to him?

BILL FINNEY: Well, in Saint Paul-- this is Bill Finney-- and in Saint Paul, officers that don't respond to the training they're given and operate outside the guidelines of the Department and certainly out the expectations of the community, they have to face the chief and be accountable for those reasons why it is they didn't adhere to our policy and our partnership with the community.

So those are the things that cause officers a bit of stress. And I would suspect that most people don't want to sit-in front of the chief. So I would expect a greater degree of compliance.

JANE RANUM: This is Jane Ranum, state senator who authored one of the pieces of legislation this past year. What I think is important is at this point in time, as a result of the legislature not passing mandatory statewide data collection on racial profiling, we really can't say at this point in time what is the extent of racial profiling in this state. What we will be able to do with the passage of the legislation is in the communities which have agreed to participate, there will be data collected in those communities.

But I think that the audience must understand that we cannot say what is the extent because it's not mandatory statewide data collection.

GARY EICHTEN: Representative Stanek.

RICH STANEK: Thank you. I mean, the state set out some general parameters as far as training and policy, and put forth money about $4.5 million for the issue of racial profiling in Minnesota in training those police officers. But certainly, local control was left up to individual police departments like Saint Paul, Minneapolis or Hennepin County.

I mean, I as a police officer for the past 19 years would not want to be sitting in the chair in front of Chief Finney answering as to why my traffic stops or my stops of citizens reflect only one portion of racial disparity. I think Chief Finney, again, he's done a good job in his department, and we have to rely on individual police chiefs and sheriffs statewide to take that issue under control and deal with it.

GARY EICHTEN: Public Defender Castro.

LEONARDO CASTRO: The agreement that Chief Finney entered in with the NAACP was a laudable task they engaged in. However, the courts are not bound by what Chief Finney and the NAACP engaged in. The courts are not bound by the policy of the police. So if a police officer does engage in this kind of conduct, there really is anything that can happen to that police officer, and the case proceeds as if there was no policy in place.

Chief Olson and Chief Finney have implemented numerous policies in their department. But all police officers don't follow those procedures. And if the courts are not bound by those, at some level they mean nothing.

GARY EICHTEN: Another audience question.

LEONARD WITT: Deidre Rhett Samuels has a question.

DEIDRE RHETT SAMUELS: Good afternoon. My name is Deidre Rhett Samuels. And my question would be for Representative Stanek and Chief Finley. In the event that there is police abuse caught on police squad car cameras, what is the guarantee me that it will be used or even viewed or if the cameras will pick up everything that happens?

BILL FINNEY: Well, I'll answer that one first. The guarantees is who you select for a chief of police. You have to understand that in terms of police officers, the public can't reach out and touch a police officer who hasn't done anything that's criminally or civilly wrong. And there's a whole lot of area in between those extremes, severely wrong or criminally wrong to where an officer can just misbehave, be disrespectful, have poor public relations, the things that really annoy members of the public and minority members in particular.

So you have to have a police department that has a chief that is responsive to the community. Because you can tell a chief what to do, but you certainly can't tell police officers much to do. And you have to trust that that chief will comply with your wishes and carry out discipline. Disciplining a police officer that has guarantees of civil service protections and the Officer Bill of Rights, et cetera is not impossible, but it's a task.

And so clearly chief law enforcement executives have to understand that they serve the community. They serve good government. That they have to adhere to the Constitution and ensure that their police officers do likewise.

GARY EICHTEN: Representative Stanek.

RICH STANEK: Thank you. Well, one of the components of the profiling legislation from this past session was, in fact, money to purchase video cameras for squad cars. And to date, there were about 100 law enforcement agencies statewide representing all the way from Duluth down to Rochester over to Saint Cloud, Minneapolis, I'm not sure about Saint Paul, but Ramsey County, a number of different agencies have asked for the video cameras.

The information will document an incident. I think that's what makes this racial profiling legislation work, is that we're looking at alternative ways to deal with the issue, not just attacking it head on, but coming at it from sides as well through the training and the policy, the cameras. And that's what Minnesota's all about.

GARY EICHTEN: Senator Ranum.

JANE RANUM: The question that you've asked is one of the questions that was asked at the legislature as well. And I can tell you that representatives of communities of color who are actively involved at the legislature were not the ones that put the cameras on the table. It came from law enforcement. They saw they had some of the very same concerns that your question has framed. But it is a part of-- because it can't get to the intent of the officer. But hopefully, at least, it will provide some avenue for at least what is on the frame.

GARY EICHTEN: Judge Bransford?

TANYA BRANSFORD: Yes. Just from a district court judge's perspective, anytime that there's something on videotape, it's evidence. And that can be when you come into court, whatever evidence that you have, a concrete evidence, videotape can sometimes speak louder than how other people interpret things. So to the extent I believe your question was, what guarantee does the videotape have that either racial profiling won't happen? The videotape does not provide any guarantees.

All it does is provide a means for recording and documenting an incident to the extent that the recording or documenting of the incident can later be used in court. It could possibly be used to verify whether or not a individual police officer did an act that was either, as Chief Finney said, criminally wrong or civilly wrong. But it's no guarantee that there won't be, quote unquote, "racial profiling." It's just a step.

GARY EICHTEN: Chief Finney.

BILL FINNEY: The judge is perfectly right. The other thing about the videotapes is, you have to understand is they're not kept forever. In fact, they're kept very, very short period of time. So if somebody has a complaint, they have to make the police department know that right away because those tapes are going to be reused. And so maybe you have a week or two, maybe as much as 30 days but not any more than that.

And those tapes are back being recycled and being played over and being recorded over. So the videotape thing-- and understand, I have 400 vehicles in the Saint Paul fleet. And I only have two video cameras. So you're not capturing even a small amount of what goes on.

GARY EICHTEN: May I ask one follow up question here? If there is a complaint, not a formal complaint, but somebody is really unhappy about the way they were treated, will anybody take that seriously?

BILL FINNEY: I will. Bill Finney certainly will.

JANE RANUM: That was one of the missed opportunities in the Senate. We passed legislation on racial profiling that was the product of agreements between representatives of law enforcement and representatives of communities of color. And in that legislation which passed the senate, there was actually a process for handling the complaints.

Unfortunately, what passed over the strong objections of representatives of communities of color, and sadly I ended up voting against the racial profiling legislation, because that was one of the things that we believed should have been in this.

GARY EICHTEN: Representative Stanek.

RICH STANEK: I'm sorry. Just two things on that. One, there is in legislation a 1800 number to the attorney general's office. And he will be the conductor of the information forwarded on to the State Licensing Board for police officers. So law enforcement does take this issue seriously of complaints. And then those complaints will be forwarded to the chief law enforcement officers, again, Chief Finney, Chief Olson, the sheriffs in our state.

In addition, all law enforcement officers will have to provide their names and/or badge numbers at stops of citizens. That is something that is not in current law but now is part of department policies statewide.

GARY EICHTEN: Len, another audience question.

LEONARD WITT: Yeah, I'm with Thomas Adams. He's got a question.

THOMAS ADAMS: Hello my question is for Mr Castro and Judge Bransford. My question has to deal with plea bargains. And what extent is a plea bargain to the best interests of the defendant or to the court system? In African-American community and other communities of color there's the notion of public pretender instead of public defender. And some of that notion comes from defendants being expedited through the court system on behalf of the courts. And so my question to you two has to pertain to that.

GARY EICHTEN: Mr Castro.

LEONARDO CASTRO: Thank you for the question. It's an excellent question because I think it all ties into how our court system is set up to function. It's set up to function as a system looking at how efficient it can run. We don't have enough judges. We don't have enough public defenders doing this work. And every time you add a new law, every time you put another police officer on the street, every time that you do something on one end of the system and you don't cover it throughout the entire system, you're going to get these problems.

Now, the issue of public pretender is an issue mostly in the media. I say to you, our office has some of the best criminal defense lawyers, not only in Hennepin County or Minneapolis, but in this country. We win murder trials on a regular basis. We try cases on a regular basis. But plea bargaining is a function of our court system. If we didn't plea bargain the way we currently engage in plea bargaining, we would not be able to function without having hundreds and hundreds of more judges and lawyers.

But let me say to you that plea bargain is also a function of poverty, because, of course, the people with money spend a lot more time in court working the system, if you will. So, of course, the people that we represent are the poor people of this community. And we do a very good job in that respect. But nonetheless, I agree with you. Could we do better? With more people, with more resources, we certainly could do better.

When we think about enacting a new law, we got to think about all that that affects. Not me, it affects everybody sitting at this table from the time we enact the law to the time the commissioner of corrections, Commissioner Hvass gets in. So yeah, I mean, your question is a good one. And it's a serious question. And I think that all of us sitting at this table when we do something, we have to recognize how it impacts everyone.

GARY EICHTEN: Judge Bransford.

TANYA BRANSFORD: Thank you for the question. Plea bargaining is an unfortunate but a real part of the criminal justice system. There are over 95% of the cases that come into criminal court as well as those that go to civil court are settled or resolved in some way without having a full jury trial. Now so if you can imagine if we had a full jury trial on all the hundreds of thousands of cases that come or it's been over millions of cases that were filed in the state of Minnesota, obviously we'd have to have a lot more judges than we have right now and we'd have to have a lot more in every respect.

So I don't really think that plea bargaining itself is a negative thing. The problem could be the negative impact. And what sometimes comes about is where people say, oh I just copped a plea because I wasn't really guilty but I figured I should. Or I copped a plea, I entered a plea bargain because my attorney didn't have enough time or resources to do the investigation. That is problematic.

And in those situations, it's really incumbent upon the judge, the defense attorneys, and the person who's being charged to honestly communicate. Judges aren't supposed to accept guilty pleas from people who sit there and say that they're not guilty. So if they say they're not guilty, but then they say, well, yeah, but I just want to go ahead and take the plea, I don't accept that plea. Because it's like then you have a right to a trial.

I have had public defenders in Hennepin County in trials before me where the jury verdict was not guilty even though they were very serious charges, and it looked like if the person was found guilty they would go to prison. I think what has a bigger effect even, is when the legislature and other agencies put into effect laws such as mandatory minimum sentencing. When you have those kinds of things, one example is there's a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for anyone with a felon in possession of a pistol.

And felon has been expanded to include not just violent felons, but even people in possession of drugs, low level possession of drugs. That might be an example of a type of law that might have a discriminatory effect.

BILL FINNEY: That's a good law.

TANYA BRANSFORD: Even though--

BILL FINNEY: That's a good law from a police perspective. Have people that carry guns and want to use them. I think that's a good law.

LEONARDO CASTRO: Well, but the point is, if it has a mandatory minimum five years, people don't plea bargain and we have more trials. And so we go to trial, and it just clogs up the system in a way because sometimes you have trials and the person is real guilty of the offense, but they have a right to have a trial anyway.

GARY EICHTEN: Leonardo Castro.

LEONARDO CASTRO: And I want to follow up with that as plea bargains as a result of poverty. The reality is that we get so many people in the courthouse who don't have time to come back to another hearing, three or four more hearings, because they have daycare problems. They've got a job. Unlike me, they don't get the four days of vacation, every paycheck or 13 holidays or whatever it is. They miss a day of work, they lose their job.

So it's easier for them to pay the $50, $75, $100 and get to work because folks want to get on with their lives. And that's a huge part of the process and the courts that we don't recognize.

GARY EICHTEN: Len, another question.

LEONARD WITT: I'm with Terry Tau.

TERRY TAU: Hi, my name is Terry Tau. Given that our elected public officials are not representative of the general population, what kinds of task force and committees are currently in place to address the racial disparities in the criminal justice system? Who decides who participates and how the resources are allocated? And how does the community get access? And these questions are for Senator Ranum and Representative Stanek.

JANE RANUM: Thank you for your question. First of all, as Judge Bransford has indicated, there is a Supreme Court task force that is addressing the issue of racial bias in the courts. But I would submit that when we ask that question about criminal justice and disparities, that we must look at a broader context, because what has come to at least some public officials attention in this discussion of racial profiling is that it really should be viewed in the bigger context of racial disparities in Minnesota in general.

Because what we are now learning is that there are huge disparities in health care and health care access. There are huge disparities in teen pregnancy and infant mortality rates. There are huge discrepancies in education K through 12 outcomes, special education, out of home placement and housing and for those of us that understand that there is a very strong correlation between academic success and juvenile delinquency.

Then what we must ask ourselves here in Minnesota in the land of the late Hubert Humphrey is, what's going on here? So one of the things that you've asked-- and I think is very important and what we talked we're beginning to understand is-- we Minnesotans who happen to be Caucasian have a lot of privilege. We need to talk about that and put that issue on the table. There's a lot of denial in Minnesota about the issue of racial disparities in general.

We need to talk about it. We Caucasians have to get real uncomfortable talking about an issue that is uncomfortable to talk about. And finally, those of you who think that there's not enough folks in public policy that are people of color, you've got to start running. You've got to start supporting people who you think represent you. That's how we change things.

GARY EICHTEN: Representative Stanek.

RICH STANEK: Well, thank you. And I'm just going to-- I mean, I assume that you wanted this to panel to be somewhat controversial as well. So I'm going to dispel one of those myths. I mean, Senator Ranum is a Hennepin County prosecutor. I'm a Minneapolis Police officer. We are elected officials in our other lives. And I mean, I think you see your elected officials across this state whether they're local, county, state, I mean, they are reflective of the different communities.

Communities in which we serve, the community in which I live is very reflective of my service in the Minnesota State legislature. But beyond that, I mean, citizen participation is very important. That's why forums like this morning or this day long forum by MPR and others is important to the citizen process. And to understand what goes into it, to have your voices heard, to have the input and the dialogue back and forth with the six of us up here. So I appreciate that.

GARY EICHTEN: Before we break here for just a second, Judge Bransford, I want to ask you a question about the task force, Supreme Court task force. As I understand that 144 recommendations, over 90 of them have been implemented. And at the same time, the disparities in the racial or criminal justice system have actually gotten worse. What's going on?

TANYA BRANSFORD: Good question. The committee is called the Multicultural Diversity and Racial Fairness in the Courts Committee. I think the problem is we've had some of the recommendations were things that we could do. They were recommendations such as every judge should have training, diversity training. We need to have court-certified interpreters, because back in 1989 and 1990 when they were putting together the Race Bias Task Force, we had no certified interpreters.

So people would come in that English was not their first language, and even their interpretation that was happening when they were in court was flawed at best. People not understanding basic court terminology. So we have been able to actually implement some changes, but we have not been able to address probably the most fundamental one which is, why is there a discrepancy and an increase, in fact, in the number of African-Americans that are going to prison in our state where we historically don't send that many people to prison when you compare it to other states?

That we use probation as an alternative a lot more so than other states. One thing that has recently been implemented by the Supreme Court in this year, 2001, is that there is statewide race-based data collection for all criminal and juvenile and traffic matters. So every time a defendant comes into court now for juvenile traffic or criminal matter, we ask their race.

And the reason that we're trying to get that is because we need to at least document the points at which the disparities are increasing. Is it at the time of the police stop? Is it at the point in which the prosecutor decides the person should be detained and in custody? Is that the judge's decision? Is it at the time of sentencing or is it what happens with the juries? So we need to-- or is it plea bargaining?

So we need to-- we're getting that data now so that we can at least be able to-- it's not the answer to the questions, but at least it will point us in the right direction to being able to identify the greater points at which disparities are occurring.

GARY EICHTEN: If you just joined us, I'm Gary Eichten. Today we're broadcasting Color of Justice Issues and Answers Forum live from the Sabathani Community Center in Minneapolis. This week, Minnesota Public Radio is exploring the issue of racial disparities in Minnesota's criminal justice system. And today, Minnesota Public Radio's Civic Journalism Initiative has gathered together 40 community members to discuss racial disparities with a panel of Minnesota leaders.

They include State Corrections Commissioner, Sheryl Ramstad Hvass, Hennepin County District Court Judge, Tanya Bransford, Hennepin County Public Defender, Leonardo Castro, Saint Paul Police Chief, Bill Finney, State Representative, Rich Stanek and State Senator, Jane Ranum. Just a reminder, you are invited to share your personal experiences and share your comments on this issue.

Just log on to our website, minnesotapublicradio.org where you'll also find a series of special reports that we're broadcasting this week. Again, our website is minnesotapublicradio.org. Len, another audience question, please.

LEONARD WITT: Yeah, I'm with Natalie Yang.

NATALIE YANG: Hi. My question is for Commissioner Ramstad Hvass. Given all of the disparities related to race, is it possible to work with or have a credible outside agency such as The People's Institute develop and implement an anti-racism training model to be implemented throughout the Department of Corrections?

SHERYL RAMSTAD: Thank you, Natalie, for that question. And it's good to be back here at Sabathani. The Department has had ongoing dialogue with the communities about the issues that are the topic of today's forum. And yes, we do have ongoing training and are most interested in initiatives that can help our staff and our administration become as sensitive as possible to cultural diversity.

We have a number of different ongoing programs within our training department. We have a diversity coordinator within each institution, and we have a person at the central office who is in contact department-wide with all of the diversity coordinators, and they meet on a regular basis to address training and to try to maximize ways in which we can sensitize our staff's perspectives to this important topic.

GARY EICHTEN: Len, other questions.

LEONARD WITT: I'm with Roslyn Artisan Koenig and she has a question.

ROSLYN KOENIG: OK, mine is to Sheryl Ramstad Hvass and the question is, what is the correction system doing to aid felons in their return to society? Does the current aftercare system do enough to ensure economic, psychological and societal success? And what is being done with the families of these felons?

SHERYL RAMSTAD: You ask a very timely question, Roslyn, since we have just redesigned our community preservation unit and renamed it, The Community Reentry Unit. You've identified areas in which we have to maximize the attention and focus, and it's been my goal since February of '99-- which when I became corrections commissioner-- to look at the first day a person is in the system as the beginning of their reentry programming and the focus upon reentry into society.

94% of the people who served time inside our state prison system do return to our neighborhoods and our communities. And it's absolutely essential that we all recognize that we have to focus on things that make a difference. That includes while they're in custody, while they're in our custody, looking at things that can change behavior patterns. Looking at chemical dependency issues, which account for about 3/4 of the people who are inside prison.

Their crimes are related to chemical dependency needs, mental health initiatives. It includes education and vocational training. And we have also focused on prison industry and vocational rehabilitation programs. So the community reentry unit is working to build networks of community support that provide reentry services to address needs in these areas. We had a housing task force that met several times. We've published a report on some of the housing needs as offenders try to reenter society.

We've also just recently completed an application in which the Department of Corrections is seeking to become one of a pilot number of pilot projects on community reentry. It's called The Minnesota Young Offender Initiative Re-entry Grant Program, sponsored through the United States Department of Justice and Department of Labor. And we're pleased to be applying for that grant along with our partners, which include the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the Minneapolis police, the Saint Paul police, the community corrections departments in Hennepin County and in St. Louis County.

And, again, the focus of that reentry grant is to try to coordinate all of the agencies that need to be addressing reentry to make sure that when people come back to their communities, they return as productive contributing members.

GARY EICHTEN: Public Defender Castro.

LEONARDO CASTRO: Thank you. The question about reentering the community is a very important one, and it ties in closely to the question about elected officials. For this reason, when you're convicted of a felony, you lose your right to vote. And one of the big problems that we find when-- and this primarily affects Black men. When they're coming back into the communities, we have problems because you're right to vote is one of the strongest rights in this country.

And it is what gives you the power to be in this country and the power to put people in power. And so losing that right-- and also tying on to losing, the ability to get housing to be able to bring families together because you lose your Section 8 housing in many situations because of that situation, and not being able to get a job because you have that felony, all these things strongly impact reentry into a community and how that impacts a particular community.

And so even if you want to do the best you can when you get out of jail or the workhouse or prison and society doesn't let you. We have such a punitive, punishing system, and not even letting people to recuperate and recover from what may have been a mistake or a tragedy or therefore the grace of god to go any one of us. Our society has established a system that prevents us from doing this.

So, I mean, I strongly feel that getting rid of some of these barriers, getting rid of some of these civil rights losses, the right to vote, Representative Stanek and I were speaking about this earlier about possibly talking about a bill that could help you get your civil rights back sooner if you're convicted from a felony.

Possibly getting rid of whatever requirements about Section 8 housing on some of these issues, or just getting a job back or expunging your record a lot quicker than the process is now. I think these are the kind of things we have to do so that when folks come back into the community, we give them even a chance to succeed.

GARY EICHTEN: Senator Ranum.

[APPLAUSE]

JANE RANUM: One of the issues that we try to confront head on when the Senate held the first hearings on racial profiling in June of 2000 was this idea that, of course, there are more people of color arrested because they commit more crimes. We heard from Professor David Harris, who is a professor at the University of Toledo Law School, who had also testified before the US Senate regarding what research, if any, addresses that issue.

First of all, there's limited research. But he cited two studies that are among the most current. One is out of the state of Maryland, where they looked at the number of people stopped by Highway Patrol and then determined what the hit rates were. Those are people who are stopped and in which drugs are found. Interestingly enough there, there was not any difference between the hit rates for people of color and Caucasians.

However, when they looked at the data coming out of a study by the US Customs Department in which, interestingly enough, I believe it was 43% of the people that were stopped were people of color. They actually found that the hit rates were higher for Caucasians than they were for African-Americans and Hispanics. This issue, I think, is important because, again, we came head on the issue of disparities with the discussion of DWI.

I, quite frankly, am a strong believer that a person that drives a car when they are intoxicated is just as much a deadly weapon as a gun. But what we found was that the life's experience of many legislators was consistent with what we were finding. We were having difficulty in that area because guess who is convicted of DWIs? Disproportionately White males. More people knew people who looked like them. So that's why Minnesota has to have a discussion about how we're dealing with race in a broader context in order to achieve justice in our criminal justice system.

GARY EICHTEN: Commissioner Ramstad Hvass.

SHERYL RAMSTAD: Well, I think the question also raised the role of the community. Government can only do so much. And we really need to address the NIMBY syndrome which is, not in my backyard. It's one thing to plan. And as agencies try to work on housing initiatives, what we found that we have found in corrections that one of the toughest things is to cite facilities, whether they're sober housing facilities, whether they're sex offender housing facilities.

You ask when the last sex offender community housing place was set up, and it's been years. So I think that it's really important for forums like this and for communities to become involved, because certainly government can't do it alone. We need faith-based organizations. We need partnerships with businesses and community organizations. We need a broad base of support and interaction with labor and certainly to address ways in which the community can pool resources and work together on this issue.

GARY EICHTEN: Chief Finney.

BILL FINNEY: Yes. Thank you, Gary. As I listened to the comments of Judge Bransford, where she identifies the different elements along the system, the police officer intervention, the courts, the corrections, et cetera, and where, in fact that minority or racial disparity begins, and I listen to the comments of Senator Ranum and talks about the discussion needs to take place in every household, I couldn't agree with that any more.

In my 32 years in law enforcement, I know that the disparate impact of minorities in the criminal justice system in Minnesota is not as it relates just to police or just to the courts or just to corrections. This is a discussion that needs to occur and talk about our perceptions, our realities of what's happening with racial interactions in Minnesota, and the fact that Minnesota is not as White a state as it used to be.

And some individuals may have some difficulty with that. But Minnesota is not as White as state as it used to be. And so there are people that are coming and they're coming to stay. And there are people from all walks of life, from different parts of the country. And many of them are people of color who have found Minnesota to be a wonderful place. They're not going to leave. And so we're going to have to work with all the individuals here and all the systems that exist and to talk about ways we can remedy that disparity.

GARY EICHTEN: Len, another question here.

LEONARD WITT: Bill Nelson has a question for you.

GARY EICHTEN: Getting shorter and shorter on time.

BILL NELSON: I'll be quick.

GARY EICHTEN: -everybody's question on.

BILL NELSON: Bill Nelson with the Volunteers of America, a national organization located also in Minnesota. My specialty is criminal justice. My question is for Judge Bransford and Mr Castro. And it's related to the question of bail bond. And when a person is arrested, accused of a crime, goes to jail, there seems to be some confusion when it comes to bail bond on the premise that, is that person entitled to a bail bond or the arguments we see in the paper that are that this person is accused of such a dastardly crime and should only be released with a very high bond.

My understanding is these people are entitled to bond. And I don't have statistics, but my sense is there is a discriminatory practice between White defendants generally and defendants of color as to what they have to pay, how long they have to stay in jail, or whether they're able to make bond at all.

GARY EICHTEN: OK, Judge Bransford, is that true? Are White people and people of color treated differently?

TANYA BRANSFORD: That is another one of the aspects that the Racial Bias Task Force looked at a number of years ago. The point at which the decision is made as to bail or how high bail should be set and whether or not that was done in a discriminatory manner. So there are instruments that are made-- most every person that comes into court, at least on a felony level offense, has already seen a probation officer.

They've done a pretrial evaluation that has accessed their criminal history, that has looked at other things, whether or not they've been in the community for two days or three months or whatever or 25 years, and they put all that information, which also includes victim impact to the extent that they've been able to contact the victim. And that information comes before the court.

And the court has to make a decision based upon that information and the recommendations from the County attorney and the defense attorney as to what the amount of bail should be. Now, there is a constitutional right that people are entitled to bail even though they've been charged with serious offenses. The issue before the court is the public safety and whether or not the person is likely to return to court.

The way that it's most discriminatorily impacted is that people with money and people with security are able to pay bail more readily than poor people. And examples of that are sometimes when bail has been set really high. I remember someone who was charged with murder, bail was set at $1 million. The person was able to post the million dollars bail. I think it was a grocery store error. But they posted the million dollar bail. But then they got out, but they committed suicide. So sometimes it's safer to keep them in.

But in any event, and a more practical example is that right now on the general DWI laws, the maximum bail is $12,000. So even if I have someone that's come through on two or three prior DWIs or four or five, the maximum I can set bail is $12,000. So the rich people can just post the $12,000 and keep walking until their trial.

And the poorer people either can't get out of jail or they're stuck because they have to pay for alcohol sensor monitoring, daily monitoring into a device, and the trial might take 60 to 90 days. So that can really have a discriminatory effect. I think it's more directly related to economic situation to the extent there's more people of color that would be negatively impacted by poor economics. It definitely has a discriminatory impact.

GARY EICHTEN: Mr Castro.

LEONARDO CASTRO: To answer your question, yes, there is a significant disparity between the people sitting in jail and those charged with a crime and those not sitting in jail waiting for trial. Reasons, I want to point to what I think are several. Wealth, obviously, is the number one. If you have the money to get out and the collateral, if you will, the way the system is set up, then you can do that.

But more importantly, I think that when you appear before-- I mean, what Senator Ranum was talking about, about us having a serious discussion on what we base our decisions on. We base our decisions on our life experiences. So when we have non people of color making decisions about values that people of color have, those things, I mean, they're not the same.

So what I think would be a good reason for you to come back to court or for you to be safe in society may not be the same reasons you think, because our experiences are different. But this is, I think, where community can play a real significant role. One of the things that I've seen is that the White community has been able-- whether it's because of years of established systems-- to come into court and say, let me take my young man back to Edina, and we'll deal with him in our particular program.

Community of color for many reasons have not been able to do that. And I think this is where community can have a significant role. And the conditions again that the court puts upon people, the amounts of money that the court puts upon people in order to-- what traditionally should be for-- to ensure that they return back to court and to ensure their safety as Judge Bransford stated it and the safety of others, is different based on your life experiences.

That's why we need more people of color as lawyers, more people of color as judges so those decisions are based more on the experiences of the people coming before them.

GARY EICHTEN: Jason, a question from the audience.

JASON SCHAFER: Yes, we have Steven Washington here.

STEVEN WASHINGTON: My name is Steven Washington. I work for the Brown Village Initiative. And one of the things we look at is the redesign and services for our community. My question states is two parts. One, to Senator Ranum. There are 77 jurisdictions who have cameras. That means if Chief Finney has two, there is something like 144 cameras in the state of Minnesota, and that was what was financed. So that is not going to get any type of information.

But my question goes back to the fact of services being presented to those people that are involved in the criminal justice system and how much money those people are generating for the industry of crime. As far as the increase in police, housing, as far as social workers to help with the families and this ever burgeoning group of people of middle class that are serving this disproportionate amount of underclass and the type of money that is being generated on an economic basis for these people, along with the force of having all this free labor available to produce money for the different industries that are also being used within the framework of these communities.

And we're not hearing nothing about all this money that's being generated just from these people. We just got six floors of jail downtown, and now we're getting three more stories of juvenile homes for African-American kids, because those we're the people who are in these jail systems. Those are the people who are in these juvenile systems.

GARY EICHTEN: OK, clock is ticking. Senator Ranum.

TANYA BRANSFORD: What I can tell you is many of us in the legislature who believe in prevention-- by that we mean not just-- we're talking about preventing people from ever coming into the system, but also going deeper agree with I think his name is Mr. Washington and I answered the question is, what is the cost of what we're spending? And interestingly enough, we have tried to ask that question in conference committees in the House and the Senate on crime prevention.

We've tried to get people to give us what is the cost. And quite frankly, some of this is so embedded that it is very difficult to pull out. For instance, you just described some of the professionals. And one of the things that wasn't on-- and I'm sure you could go on with others-- is the cost of out-of-home placement. The cost of children not only for juvenile delinquency but for chips. By that I mean children in need of protective services.

So I encourage you to keep asking, but really making sure that professionals understand we've got to have that data in order to invest more up front, which is what so many of us really believe in.

GARY EICHTEN: Can I ask a simplistic question that brings us back to where we started. And basically a yes or no answer from each of you because time is running short. Are more people of color being arrested and incarcerated in the state of Minnesota because they're committing more crimes? Commissioner.

SHERYL RAMSTAD: Therein lies the $64,000 question. I think we're trying to find that out right now with the studies that are going on.

GARY EICHTEN: Chief Finney.

BILL FINNEY: I don't believe so.

GARY EICHTEN: Senator Ranum.

JANE RANUM: I don't think we have enough information. I think that the hit rates research says we don't know. We need to know.

GARY EICHTEN: Mr Castro.

LEONARDO CASTRO: The answer is, no. But you can only find gold where you look for gold.

GARY EICHTEN: Judge Bransford.

TANYA BRANSFORD: I think the answer is, no as well. The studies and information that I've seen, for instance, show that cocaine use is higher in White communities than it is in African-American communities, yet African-Americans disproportionately get arrested for the same offense.

GARY EICHTEN: Representative Stanek.

RICH STANEK: I don't think you got a yes or no answer out of anybody here, and I'm not going to give you one either. I think, I mean, the purpose of the criminal justice system is to hold people accountable. And I mean I don't know what the end answer is, but I don't think it's a yes or a no to that question.

GARY EICHTEN: We have a minute left, and we were not here to solve this problem. And there was no hope of doing that today. But anybody come up with one thing that should be done immediately to at least address this issue? Anybody with a quick suggestion?

JANE RANUM: Work together as a community.

GARY EICHTEN: Representative Stanek?

RICH STANEK: I do. The last couple of weeks I had a chance to read the first report that was put out by this community group. And I think that when we go back in the legislative session, if Senator Ranum would agree, maybe we should take up this issue, invite you down to the Capitol or hold our legislative hearing back out here in Minneapolis or Saint Paul and talk about some of the issues you've brought forward. Let us discuss it on a policy basis. Now you brought forth the issues. Let us discuss it on a policy basis and see what might come of it.

GARY EICHTEN: Judge Bransford.

TANYA BRANSFORD: Racial disparity in the criminal justice system is just we have to remember that the criminal justice system is just a subset of society in general. And as Senator Ranum said, we need to recognize and realize that we have racism in the state of Minnesota just as we do nationwide to the extent that we can do something. It's to say that we need to discuss these issues in our families among people now and in the legislature.

GARY EICHTEN: Your honor, you get the last word. We're out of time, but we would really like to thank all of you here at Sabathani for participating in our Color of Justice Forum today. Thanks to all of you from the community who turned out today. And thanks to our panelists, Saint Paul Police Chief, Bill Finney, Hennepin County Public Defender, Leonardo Castro, State Representative, Rich Stanek, State Senator, Jane Ranum, Corrections Commissioner Sheryl Ramstad Hvass and Hennepin County District Judge, Tanya Bransford.

Also special thanks to Tom Johnson and David Ellis of the Council on Crime and Justice, who provided our citizens with background on the issues, and to facilitator Rosalind Carroll of Hamline University. Today's forum was organized by Leonard Witt, the executive director of the MPR Civic Journalism Initiative with assistance from Jason Schafer and Lindsay Brown. Just a reminder, again, you can find out much more about this subject on our website. And we encourage you to add your stories to our website collection, minnesotapublicradio.org.

Sarah Meyer is the producer of our program. Our engineers today where Tricia Daylor and Clifford Bentley. I'm Gary Eichten. Good afternoon from the Sabathani Community Center in South Minneapolis.

[APPLAUSE]

SPEAKER: Broadcast of Minnesota Public Radio's reports this week on The Color of Justice are supported in part by The Minneapolis Foundation, a center for giving, connecting resources with opportunities to benefit Minnesota. You are listening to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio. Gary Eichten will be back in the studio tomorrow. And a reminder that tomorrow at noon, it is a live broadcast of a national press club luncheon speech by Minnesota Supreme Court justice, Alan Page.

That's coming up at noon tomorrow. Minnesota Supreme Court justice Alan Page at the National Press Club. That's a live national Press Club speech tomorrow at noon on midday.

GARY EICHTEN: In 1999 in Hennepin County, half of all African-American males between 18 and 30 were arrested. Minnesota imprisons more African-Americans per capita than Alabama. Why? The Color of Justice online now at minnesotapublicradio.org

SPEAKER: This is Minnesota Public Radio. We have 64 degrees at KNOW FM 91.1 Minneapolis, Saint Paul. Twin Cities weather for the remainder of the day, it will remain cloudy with the highs and the low 60s tonight. Clouds moving out, but still a chance of some fog in low lying areas. For tomorrow, sunny and mild. The high close to 65 degrees. Sunny again on Friday.