December 23, 2024 • 58 mins
In this episode of "Everyday Black Men," the hosts—Riker, Reed, The Black Libertarian, Stylish, The Rider, and Sham—welcome Ken W., a bail attorney and board member of the Professional Bondsmen of Texas. Ken reveals that the FBI has admitted to inaccuracies in its crime statistics, sparking questions about the broader implications of flawed data. The Black Libertarian underscores the right to self-defense with Ken, which flips when Ken professes he supports the traditional bailbond system—an area of disagreement since the Black Libertarian personally benefited from cash bail to avoid an indefinite jail stay. Reed favors a system tailored to local needs, prompting Sham to ask if any agencies or individuals work toward bridging the gap between extremes. Stylish then raises concerns about migrant-related crime, leading Ken to explain how cartels exploit migrants for minor offenses that still trigger cash bail, effectively concluding a thought-provoking discussion.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:22):
Started recording.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
He don't, Oh no, I just wanted to make sure
we were in a stable seat. Didn't realize everybody at
different things that came up.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to another episode of Everyday black
Man Podcast Podcasts for auth any blackmail thoughts. You have
your guests here, mister Kane. He's going to talk about
bail bondsman in Texas. We also have our normal uh
cohort with the writer read Sam Stylish.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
And of course myself Riker. Follow us on Twitter, ev
y d black Men, Instagram, every Day Bloe the n
Everyday black Man Podcasts Facebook page. We also have a
Patreon EBMP. You can find all episodes Davy there. First,
you gotta have exclusive episodes there as well. And last
and not least, our website is www dot Everyday black
Man dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So mark the show.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Let's go ahead and let's start the show.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Ken tell our listeners a little bit more about what
you do and who you represent, and we can go
into the topics from there.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
Well, thank you so much for having me. I would
say to start with I am a father of two daughters.
I'm I think that's probably the most important thing people
should know about me. I'm married to someone who's actually
an attorney as well. She's a lot smarter than me. Uh,
and so I don't get away with any crap because
(01:50):
I got For some reason, I got it to my
head I need to marry a smart woman. I you
know I have. I come from a very poor background,
but I had two public school teachers who taught me
the importance of education, and so I went to college.
I got a master's degree. I taught high school for
a couple of years, and then I went to law school.
(02:11):
I went to Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, and I
became an attorney. I became board certified in civil appeld
at law, I represented doctors and hospitals when they were
getting sued, and sometime I started representing bondsman and that
morphed into what I do today. I specialize in bell law.
I traveled the state of Texas, and I've written articles
(02:35):
on numerous bell issues across the country. I just had
an article published a week or so ago in the
Attorney at Law magazine magazine talking about increasing crime and
calling in to question the FBI statistics on crime because
there's other federal government agencies that actually track crime, and
what do you know, nine days after my article. I'm
(02:57):
sure it's completely unrelated because nobody knows who I am.
But nine days later, the FBI amended their statistics to
show that crime was up and not down. And so
I'm not saying I'm prophetic. I'm not saying they changed
their statistics because of anything I did. I just thought
that the timing was very interesting, an issue that I
thought should be something that should be addressed with the public,
(03:19):
and it was a growing issue. And then the next
thing you know, the FBI is agreeing it's an issue,
and they address it and brought their statistics in line
with the other federal government agencies that track crime and
showed that crime was actually increasing instead of decreasing.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, excellent.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I know no one likes to be prophetic when it
comes to things like that, but you know, certainly we
won't have accurate crime statistics. And if the FBI has
to mend their stuff, I mean it kind of reminds
me of the jobs numbers from not that long ago.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
Was that political Well, you know, it's too early, we
don't know whether it was political or not. Let's just
say let's assume it's not political. The FBI changed the
way they were gathering their statistics probably four or five
years ago, and so it's been a very bumpy conversion.
And you know, police agencies had to bring in additional
(04:13):
equipment that was expensive to be able to report to
the FBI into the new system. And you know, I
think I even say in my article, the two largest
police agencies in the country, LA or New York City,
we're not even reporting into the system. So how can
we even think that they're accurate if the two largest
police agencies in the country are not reporting to them.
(04:33):
So I think part of it is a conversion problem.
And then you know, anytime one party is quoting police
statistics and that's the only thing that they have to
support crime is going down and that everybody else is
just not seen it. And then when the FBI comes
out and amends it, you have to think, well, maybe
(04:53):
there was a political element of it at one point,
but I mean there's other explanations that get you to
the same result.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Right, Because I remember they were reporting the increase in
crime by statistics like it's one hundred percent, you know whatever,
And I was just like, but we just had a pandemic.
So I was just like, is that political? That sounded
political to me.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
But they were using the FBI statistics to say that
crime was going down, and that you didn't you couldn't
believe your eyes when you saw that crime was going up,
because you know, there's been there's been I mean, I've
been on a debate before on this issue where they
were using the FBI crime statistics as their single argument
for why crime was going down, and that everything else
that you see was not accurate or that you couldn't
(05:37):
believe it because it wasn't the FBI. So all the
other things were showing that crime is going up, and
especially in our inner cities, especially for our minority communities.
And so when you see that the FBI during the
middle of the election season changes their crime statistics and
now the new one show that crime is actually going up.
The only piece of evidence they had to show that
crime was going down was the old FBI statistics and
(05:59):
now they don't have them.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yes, I like the Lenthal question to that, So.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
What, well, one is what other databases that are out
there that measure crime that are yeah and give us
kind of like a scope. Is it just federal or
is it federal, state, local? And then on top of that,
are these other systems Well, actually it takes that back.
Are these systems using the quote unquote same definition of
(06:26):
to what crime is and what variables lead to crime?
Speaker 5 (06:29):
Well, I think different federal agencies look at different things.
Like the CDC tracks homicides, and so while the FBI
statistics before they were amended showed that homicides were going down,
the CDC statistics show that homicides were up twenty percent,
and so I think that's one of them. The DOJ
(06:51):
does certain tracking, and I think actually they do a
survey of crime. They do it and they've been doing
it for many, many years. And if you look at
that that that data showed crime was up across the board.
If you wanted to get into the minutia, you know,
the probably the most accurate data on crime is carjackings,
because insurance companies still require a police report before they'll
(07:14):
pay off on that insurance claim, and that data is
devastating for the people arguing that crime is going down.
And there's others. I mean, you can look at just
regional data like Harris County in Houston had a press
confidence saying crime is going down, it's where everybody's doing
a great job. And then weeks later they had another
(07:35):
press conference where it was disclosed that they had closed
two hundred and sixty something thousand cases, with the notation
that they just didn't have enough manpower to investigate all
those cases. So it's really easy to say crime is
going down when you close two hundred and sixty something
thousand cases.
Speaker 6 (07:52):
Without basically well and there was no resolution to it, right.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
No, No, they were just closed because they said they
had a lack of manpower. Though, I mean, if you
want to talk about politics, I mean that guy, I mean,
the city police chief ended up losing his job over that.
I mean, And really, the whole I think, the whole
reason why we're having this argument is because these of
what I would call bell ad bell reform things that
(08:16):
we've tried in our urban areas, like in New York
and also in LA have been devastating, and they've been
devastating because crime has increased. And the argument against that
has always been, well, no, crime hasn't been increasing, it's
been going down. And so now that argument has kind
of been decimated, and they don't even have the argument
that crime is going down, and so you would expect,
(08:38):
you know, if we're all politicians that are just looking
after the best interests of the community, then you would say, Okay,
what we've been trying is not working. We need to
try something new. I mean, New York has now rolled
back their bell reform statute three times, and it looks
like it's the number one issue in New York for
this election as well, and there's a couple of seats
(08:59):
in and you know, I would I would say that
the House of Representatives in the federal government is controlled
by the Republicans right now because two years ago crime
was a major issue and it determined multiple races in
New York and it looks like it's going to do
that again this election cycle because they still have not
resolved the rising crime issue.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Interesting. Interesting, definitely.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
You know, I like looking at, you know, the statistics
from both sides and if you know, we don't have
the statistics that everyone is utilizing and that there really
is pretty damning for the evidence.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Is there anything that the proponents of cash bail reform
are going into outside of citing this one statistic that's
been kind of disproven.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
Well, you can look at a lot of things. And
let's just take California in a nutshell. So a decade ago,
we passed or they passed Proposition forty seven, and the
argument was, we're going to reclassify certain felonies as misdemeanors,
and that's going to includ theft under nine hundred and
fifty dollars. And the argument was, these people, whoever they are,
(10:06):
are still going to have to respond, They're still going
to have to get they'll still be punished for the
crimes to commit, but they'll still but now since it's
a misbeaner not a felony, they'll be able to get jobs.
But then in our inner cities, in our urban areas,
we have prosecutors in California that decided they were no
(10:26):
longer going to prosecute theft under nine hundred and fifty
dollars once it was lowered to a misdemeanor. And as
a result, you can see over the last decade what's happened.
Shoplifting has taken off. Stores have closed because they can't
withstand twenty five thousand dollars a day in shoplifting.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
And then you know, then it's I mean, then it
becomes a much worse situation because look at starts to
affect the tax base. You see commercial properties nose diving
in their values. You see the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building
in San Francisco where they told federal workers to no
longer come to the office, work from home because it's
(11:04):
not safe. You've got buildings that are selling for thirty
to fifty percent of their value from just two or
three years ago. And you know Minneapolis and Minnesota, it's
not California, but it has similar issues because it's the
urban area. There's two buildings there that just sold for
(11:24):
nine percent of their value from the last time they sold.
Commercial default rates are going from have gone from five
percent now they're at forty one percent. So you can
see a direct correlation of bad bell reform measures increasing
crime having a devastating effect on public safety. And if
(11:46):
we don't want to call it crime anymore because we're
not prosecuting, it's still a public safety issue. If mom
and dad or Grandma and grand public can no longer
go to the CVS pharmacy or the Walgreens on the corner,
and now they have to take public transport for thirty
minutes or longer to get their medications to go to
the local grocery store. Then that raises public safety issues.
(12:09):
I mean you can see it. Also, let's just go
to Portland, Oregon, where they decriminalized all heavy drugs. The
argument was, if we will do that, then finally people
will seek counseling, they'll go into rehab because there's no
criminal penalty. Well, what happened. The criminal penalty has just expired.
(12:29):
I mean the setting aside the criminal penalty has just expired.
They did not renew them because the result has been
so devastating on the public. Drug use has gone from
six percent to twelve percent. People are overdosing. We're setting
records on overdosing every month, and the people the programs
(12:49):
they set up for rehab and drug abuse counseling, only
zero point zero one percent of people were actually reaching
out to use them. So it just confirms what we've
been saying along. You have to have the hammer of
threatening to send somebody to jail if they are unwilling
to go to rehab. And we have to have that
hammer every time because rehab has a seventy five percent
(13:12):
failure rate, So we have to have an incentive for
people to keep going back until they decide they would
rather be off drugs.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Can I ask you a question though, Yeah?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Sure, isn't something to be said about the fact that
our laws have taken away the rights of citizens who
are trying to protect themselves in general, right, even if
you look at Western in Portland, organ Right, Portland organ
is mostly a Democrat place and they're not higher on
people protecting themselves.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Right.
Speaker 7 (13:38):
So, yes, everybody can have the right to do whatever
drugs they want. But if somebody tries to break my house,
I should be able to defend myself properly with no
obligation to the law.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
But well, I think you and I agree on that
because but let me go back to your argument about
you know, no one should have the right to, you know,
take these drugs. I think I disagree with you. The
people that were pushing for these reforms, I think that
that was going to be their next argument. You have
a right to od if you want to. You and I,
as reasonable people, would say no, as a society, we
(14:09):
can't sanction overdose as a right for the for the community.
We need to be standing up that you can't do that.
On your other argument about the government is preventing people
from protecting themselves. That's an argument I use a lot.
I'm like, if the government is not going to protect me,
then at the very least, the government should allow me
(14:30):
to have a gun so I can protect myself. I mean,
that just seems like common sense.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
But understand of them, that's not what happens to.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
Your first point. Though, sorry to cut you off, I do.
I don't feel like it's unreasonable to say if you
want to o D you can, because people can eat
as many sandwich as they want and cause themselves heart
failure if they want to. Right, I'm a libertarian, so
my views may be a little bit obscure to most people,
but honestly feel that people should have body. You're telling
me if you want to do something that you're fine
to do it as long as it doesn't affect me.
(15:03):
When you start affecting me is when we have a problem. Right,
So I my argument against for the drugs is that
we allow people to become morbially obese. That affects our
system in many ways. Right, heart failure puts a strange system.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
What does the government do on policies on obesity? They
set up things to encourage people to lose weight.
Speaker 7 (15:25):
And so we don't think the government to do that
though I honestly don't think it's the government's place to do.
Speaker 8 (15:29):
We're getting away from the subject.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
Okay, I agree with you, but let me just finish
this thought. So the government has limitations on everything, and
the biggest limitation on what the government can do is money.
The things that pushing people, the policies for people to
be more healthy is so the government spends less money
on healthcare. The whole policy for having uh, let's don't
do drugs. You don't have a right to have to ode.
(15:53):
So so if you odeed, does the government have an
obligation to bring you back with nar can? That's the
whole point. Are we going to then, been the limited
resources that we have on spending all of our resources
bringing you back after you exercise your right to od.
That's the whole concept of where money comes into play.
We have limited resources and we don't We don't realize
(16:14):
how much those limited resources affect policies across the spectrum,
and they shouldn't expected should be affecting our bail policies
as well.
Speaker 7 (16:23):
I agree with you, but I think well, policies will
be lowered if we allow people to have individual rights.
That's that's that's where I think I.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Do agree with that because you can look at Portland
Morgon and see that that's absolutely not true.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Right.
Speaker 9 (16:40):
And I was going to say too, like that these
you know, the so called rights that wherever they do
have costs, like everything does. Like that's what we you know,
that's easy when we do it and go right. You
just have to balance those those the coasts versus the
benefit of doing anything.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
So my question is when it comes to the bailbonds,
ken you're saying that because they or some states, like
the Liberal states, either California in New York, when they
roll back on their bail bonds, so basically shortening the
net so it doesn't catch as much people or more
people can't go through the net and come back. In society,
it's increasing the crimeates or it's increasing the crimates or
(17:23):
keeping them high. And we need to actually morally broaden
the net so that we can bring more people into
jail and have more forms so that we lower crime.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Is that what you're saying, No, it's it's a very
a different argument than that. I mean, I think what
we don't. What the public does not realize is like
in New York and California, in our urban areas where
they're doing what I call bad bell reform, is they're
doing so they're doing a charge based release system. So
we're just releasing people on their promise that they'll come
(17:53):
back without having to put up any any collateral or
any security. In New York we call it release on
no bond. In California, were released on zero bond. In
Texas where they do it when it is granted it
is released on a personal bond, but they're all the
same thing. We're releasing someone on their promise that they
will return. Like in New York, they made a list
(18:16):
of crimes, and on those crimes, the judge has no
discretion but has to release somebody on no bond, so
they just are released on their promise. The problem is
that's true no matter how many times they commit that crime,
like catalytic converter theft. I mean, we would probably all
agree it's a low level crime. But the problem is
(18:37):
if you've done it once, this one thing. If you've
done it ten times, it's another thing. If you've done
it twenty times, it's another thing. Because as a result
of these policies, organized crime has learned how to make
thousands of dollars on each catalytic converter that has been stolen.
And so you're giving an incentive when you use these
policies which are just immediate release some because of the
(19:01):
charge that they were arrested for, without looking at their
criminal history, without looking at any of those other other
things to see if hey, maybe this is a continuing problem.
It just is a green light to commit more crime,
and the system can't. The system can't handle this. The
system gets overloaded with cases that puts pressure on them
(19:23):
to de facto dismiss to dismiss the cases because they
just have so many, and dismissal is de facto decriminalization.
Decriminalization is a green light to commit more crime. That's
what we're seeing across our urban areas.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
So what my understanding is is basically, someone goes and
commits a crime, goes to court, judge goes, Okay, you've
done this, So you're gonna go to the bail and
go through the bail process, and the bail processes basically
on your word, you'll come back and make sure they're good.
But that person goes out does the same thing, see
the judge again, and the judges are like, well, I'll
have many probably do anything. So your last case is
(19:59):
Mimi dismissing, And you know you just go back out
there and keep doing the same thing.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
No, no, no, no, I'm not saying your last case is dismissed,
but I'm saying you keep getting you know, you keep
getting arrested for the same crime. They can't hold you.
So without these type of policies, if you got arrested
three times for the same crime, the judge would say, well,
I'm not going to release you again because you're just
going to go do it again. There's a public safety element,
but we're tying the hands of our judges so that
(20:25):
they can't use their discretion and that these policies are
being perceived as a green light to commit more crime.
Speaker 8 (20:33):
So how do we.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
You know that moving forward? Because a politics is a
part of it.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
But at the same time too, at the end of
the day, you know, when it comes to truly resolving
all these issues, you know a law needs to be
put in place. So what laws would you recommend that
would help create a solution for this problem?
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Well, you know, the problems that we have is that
we have a separation of powers between the executive branch,
the judicial branch, in the legislative branch. So you know,
you're really kind of advocating that the legislative branch is
going to tell the judiciary judicial branch how to how
to run its uh its system. Uh. And so there's
(21:16):
limitations on what can be done. You know, there are
cases where statutes get held unconstitutional all the time because
they have violated the separation of powers. But where so
where we're seeing it happen is you know, where where
we're taking away the judges discretion on setting bail. The
statutes can say what the judge has to take into consideration.
(21:37):
And so when we're saying, if it's a charge based release,
no matter how many times you've been arrested for this charge,
if you get arrested again for this charge, you will
be released. That's that's uh, that's a problem in New York.
They they've made it where the judges can't consider dangerousness
of the defendant in setting bail. So we have these,
(21:58):
I would say, just ludicrous things that we're tying the
hands of the judges behind their back. So that they
can't do their job, which is they already know what
to do. And you already mentioned politics. Politics is kind
of always an issue, but it's become a huge issue
on these criminal justice reform issues and on bail reform issues.
(22:20):
And I know you know the audience that I'm talking to,
But we could, I mean, we could spend another hour
on talking about whether we have a systemic racist system
in place or not, which obviously I do not believe
that we do.
Speaker 7 (22:34):
Let me let me ask you this though. Okay, let's
say we get rid of cash Bill, right, but if
it wasn't for cash Bill, me being whwai am I
would I would have spent more time in jail than
I needed to.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Right.
Speaker 7 (22:44):
This is coming from a person who's experienced cash bail systems.
Let me ask you here's well, wait, let me get
to my question. Only cash bail system right with a judge.
These judges are slow, The court system is slow. So
there's another side to this that we're not speaking about,
where we say, hey, someone's sitting to jail in jail
(23:04):
for a minor crime for two years, right, that shouldn't
ever happen, but it does happen, And it did happen
in our previous system where people are set in jail
for minor crimes and lost their whole life. Is that
they did something they didn't do right, because they're the
amount of time they spend in jail, the amount of
life they lost compared to what they would have lost
(23:25):
in reality because of the slow judicial system that we
have in America cost this person years of their life
that they shouldn't have ever lost, right. And there's those
kind of errors that we make in malfunctions we have
in our system. Or let's even say someone's innocent of
a crime, there's no cash bail and they're sitting for
jail for something they didn't do right. And my personal
philosophy is if one innocent man has to suffer, then
(23:48):
our system is broken. Not saying that what you're not
saying that your point is wrong, that our cash bail
system isn't working. What I am saying is is that
our system in hold may need to be looked at
entirely because there's a whole other side of this when
it comes to judicial justice, along people sitting the terms
they serve and how it affects their personal life for crimes,
(24:09):
and I agree there are people who abuse these systems,
but I'm also I also want to point the fact
that our judicial system abus the citizens of this country consistently,
and we don't know where the middle is in figuring
this out right, because let me make.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
A couple of points on this. You know, let me
quote from a news Nation town hall. There was a
mayor who is a former judge on there talking about,
you know, the private charity ball system. So this is
coming from and she was a mayor of an inner city,
so she was somebody that that would be like minded
with with probably most of you all. And her this
(24:45):
was her point. She says, Look, if you don't have
an alternative to the private industry bail system that has
the same high level of accountability which means people go
to court and the same low faire to a peerate
because everything else has a high faired period. So until
you get an alternative to that, you don't have an alternative.
(25:05):
It's not like we like the private shirty bell system.
I understand that, you know, we're easy targets. But the
reason why the private shirty bell system has been around
for two hundred years is because it does one thing,
and it does it very well. It gets people to
go to court. Now, on your point about the courts
are slow, I mean, let's look at bail and taxas
(25:26):
I mean in bell and Texas. Since it's the job
of the judge to determine bail and it's reviewed on
abuse of discretion standard, the trade off is you can
file a motion to reconsider ball at any time. I mean,
you can file multiple motions to reconsider bail. And the
Texas statutes have limitations like on low level crimes you
can't keep them in jail longer than a certain period
(25:50):
of time, a certain period for a misdemeanor, a certain
period for a felony. And then I would just come
back to you and just say, you know, we want
to put everything in a little cookie cutter for the
criminal justice system. And the problem is, and I think
a lot of people arguing the advocates for change are
too but what they I think what everybody doesn't realize
(26:11):
is the criminal justice system is meant to be very individualized.
It is intended that we are only going to apply
the least amount of pressure to you to get you
to reform and become a productive citizen. So what that
is for me on a first time offender or what
that is for me as a ten time offender is
(26:33):
two different things. And I think that we lose track
of that, and I do agree we need to review
the system, do a system. While review, Do we really
want this to be a crime anymore? Because we're really
doing a lot of damage to our criminal justice system
when one county is prosecuting this crime and then you
(26:54):
go to the next county and someone's not prosecuting that crime,
and suddenly the public doesn't know who to believe. But
I don't think that we should be setting up policies
that cause the whole system to fail and cause public
safety to be called into question. I don't think that,
and I think that's what's happening. We're trying out things
(27:16):
that have never been done before, have not been shown
to work. And when we show we start having data
that says this is causing crime to increase, then the
only thing we hear is crime is not increasing. You're
just wrong. Is perception over reality And look at the
FBI statistics. Until this week the FBI came out and said, well,
they didn't even say it, they just changed them. And
(27:39):
that has been all over the national news this week.
So the question is, like, to your point, how do
we provide public safety and how do we do that?
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Well, yeah, I think that's I think that's a good
point for a black libertarian to pick up from, Like
what are some possible alternatives and some compromises that we
can do to bridge between the different means that we
have here.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
But I would say getting rid of law enforcement is
not an alternative. Getting rid of our hard criminal laws
is not an alternative. We've shown that with the defund
the police movement, and because I think every jurisdiction has
refunded in his increase, but we've also shown on the
drug movement in Oregon that has been an absolute failure
and they have admitted it and they've allowed the statutes
(28:24):
to lapse. So what I mean, we know what works.
We've been told for three or four years, let's try
this something else, and we have and it has been
a failure. So I mean the big shock is we've
done this before. We're committing the same mistakes we've made
in the sixties. In the sixties, we were feeling safe,
we were more forgiving on our criminal laws, and what
(28:44):
do you know, crime went up. The politicians couldn't decide
on how to address it. One side of the spectrum
refused to be engaged, and so we had a backlash,
and in nineteen eighty Reagan took office with his War
on drugs. I think we're just committing the same cycle
right now, but the pendulum has swung much further to
(29:05):
the left, which means that when it swings back, and
I think it's in the process of doing so, it'll
swing much further to the right. And I keep telling
my friends to on the left. Y'all, do not even
realize that you're being the catalyst for causing the pendulum
to swing so hard to the right because you're not
willing to recognize that there's a problem. You're not willing
(29:25):
to help address the problem.
Speaker 7 (29:27):
Oh so I want to say that to answer your question,
I do think there is a problem, but I do
not think that the problem is in a vacuum. I
think that there are a lot of factors that lead
to these problems, partly the economy. Right, if we go
back and look in the past, when the economy became horrible,
when it was harder for people to get jobs, when
it was harder for people to obtain wealth, prime skyrocketing, right,
(29:49):
So we can't say in a vacuum, oh well, this
one thing is why. We can say it contributed, but
we can't say this is why.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Right.
Speaker 7 (29:56):
So to answer your question will be very difficult. But
one of the things I do believe will help it
will move back to community enforcement. Smaller communities, smaller enforcement.
They have satellite police stations that are more community involved. Right.
If you look at the city of Atlanta, that's where
I live, the police stations and the people, the jails.
(30:17):
It's a disconnect. It's a total disconnect from community to government,
to how we govern, to how we police our neighborhoods
in our environments. And as long as that disconnect exists,
we will continue to see crime skyrocket.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
Right.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
And that's why I'm very big on providing individual responsibility
for crimes and protection. Not to say that we need
to get rid of the police, not to say that
we need to get rid of the government. But and
I know this is going to sound like a joke,
and I'm not trying to make a joke, but I
do like to muse extremities to prove my point. In Georgia,
If I put in Atlanta, the city of Atlanta. If
(30:54):
I put a bear trap in my yard, whatever it is,
I can't do that. I can go to jail. Right
If we do not allow people to fortify and protect
their homes, their neighborhoods, and their communities, then we're asking
for crime. We're asking for problems. If I don't feel
like the government has my back as a homeowner to
protect my home, my children, my wife, my family, my cousins,
(31:17):
my sister, my brother, then how can I feel safe?
If I can only wait to call the police and
they're so burning right by these changes that the government makes,
by these little micro laws that cause all of this
congestion in the court system and for policing, then what
am I to do?
Speaker 6 (31:35):
Right?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
At some point, we're actually what you're saying is what
gives me hope in the criminal justice reform movement, because
what we're doing right now is not sustainable the public.
You know, I mean Mayor Adams in New York. He's
got his own problems right now. But I heard him
on a podcast recently and he was just under attack
from the far left about what he was doing in
(31:56):
New York, and he was saying, look, you know, one
of the foundations of society is public safety, and if
you can't provide public safety, then you don't have a society.
I agree with that, and so I agree what you're
saying is what gives me hope, because what we're doing
right now is not sustainable. And since it's not sustainable,
the public, the people, very people you're talking about, are
(32:17):
the ones that are going to demand change. I mean,
who would have thought in the last In the last year,
the NAACP and Oakland issued a letter open letter to
all the local elected officials attacking them saying we need
a state of emergency on crime in Oakland, and they
were attacked. They were attacked by the sitting DA saying
(32:38):
you're just using Republican talking points, and the regional NAACP
came out and said, we agree with the local n
double ACP. Crime is a problem. It's epidemic, and we
have to address crime. And that's the problem right now.
When you've got the la of of of California, the
(32:58):
la DA and his office is saying, well, we just
have a disagreement on who the real victim is. We
think the victim is. The real victim is the defendant,
not the person who had the crime committed on them. Well,
that's a problem because then the criminal justice system, you know,
there's several things like you know, the reason why it's
important that the defendant not run is because we can't
his case can't move forward if he's not there. We
(33:21):
have to wait for them to come back, except in
limited situations. And if there's nobody, if the DA is
not in there being the voice for the victim, then
there's nobody in the courtroom arguing or giving the court
the perspective of the victim. And that's one of the
problems that we have right now in California. And that's
why in November, this Proposition forty seven, which was a
(33:46):
decade ago, it's again on the ballot for major rollback
and it's expected to win win and the DA gascon
he's also on the ballot to be defeated. He only
got twenty five of the vote in the primary and
because he made it to the last round because of
the way they do it, but he's expected to lose big.
(34:08):
So I mean, the public is the one coming into saying, Okay,
we gave these a try, these didn't work. We now
we know how to address public safety. We know how
to address crime, and we need to go back to
some of those things that we know that work.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
So my question is this is my problem, and it's
always been my problem with the left and pretty much
the right. They always have these large opinions on how
these quote unquote neighborhoods should be fits. And I'm like,
you guys don't live here, you know, you don't like,
where's the community involvement with the people local to you
know it's actually happening in the crime besides just talking
(34:43):
to a business because you know, they can just close
their doors today. These people who actually live here typically
they live here one two generations and they stay there.
So like, where's the aspect of community involvement and actually
making loss that you know, suit that place where they
live versus a larger you know, a pin of like
something I agree with New York don't know anything about.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
I agree with some of the things you're saying, because
you know, we are now in a period where nobody
can agree on anything. I mean, we don't have somebody saying, hey,
we have to have law enforcement. I mean we have
to have law enforcement to have public safety. We don't
have that anymore in our urban areas and we have
anytime there's an election, anybody that loses, well the election
(35:24):
was stolen. I mean the Supreme Court issues of ruling
that you don't like, Well, the Supreme Court is it's
not a valid institution. It's been it's lost its luster.
I mean, you know, I remember, I remember a time.
I remember a time when somebody would come out with
an important ruling. The political looters would say, well, we
disagree with it, but you know what, we're here to
(35:46):
respect the jury's decision. Were respect the decision of the
courtills don't. We don't do that anymore, and so you know,
when we that's part of the problem with the bill
reform movement is, you know, the private surety bell system
is an easy target. They're the low hanging fruit. Everybody
would like to change to something else. There's just not
anything else that works. And as we've seen over the
(36:09):
you know, the last few years, like New York in
acted reform, they have now rolled it back three different times.
And it just wasn't a couple of months apart, it
was three different annual years because they did it in
their budget. And so that's recognition that it's not working
and it's been rolled back, and it still has further
rollbacks to go because they still won't allow the trial
court judges to consider the dangerousness of the defendant to
(36:33):
in allowing or determining whether he should be released on bail.
What they've done is taking this long list of charges
that the trial court no longer has any discretion on
and they've made it smaller and a smaller and smaller list.
But on the opposite side, we're still continuing to make
felonies misdemeanors, and so we have a lot of crimes
that were used to be felonies that are now misdemeanors.
(36:54):
And then I mean, if you have an eighty percent
failure to a period in misdemeanor court in California, then
you know, and on top of that, they have the
Speedy Trial Act, which means if you don't show up
and you don't come back after a certain period of time,
the case has to be dismissed. Because of the Speedy
Trial Act. Then that system is being polluted and we
(37:16):
need to clean it up.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yeah, I definitely would the good Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
So let me say, so everything's been nationalized and it's
not been like that's what I heard like everything is nationalized,
like no, no.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
No, no. I mean, you know, the federal government has
its own system of bail, and then every state has
their own system of bail. That's the reason why in
New York they call it release on no bond, In
California they released on zero bond, they call it that,
and in Texas they would call it release on a
personal bond. Because every state used their own system. But
(37:51):
the federal system, I mean, there are there's good examples
of the extremes between the two and UH and the
federal system. We reformed that twenty five years ago during
Reagan's administration. At the time, they were only holding twenty
five percent of the people arrested until trial. Well, as
a result of the reforms and change over time, that
(38:12):
percentage now is seventy five percent of people arrested in
the federal system are detained until they go to trial.
The only reason why that's okay is are that that
is functional, is because the federal government is that the
main source of prosecuting crime in the United States, it's
the states. But the states can't they can't pay for
(38:36):
they can't afford to detain seventy five percent of the
people arrested, and that's that could never happen, and so
that's you know, but the problem is when the pendulum
sling swings to the far right this time, that's going
to be the argument we need to just detain people.
And that's when I mean people will not just like
they're not going to allow people to crime to increase
(38:58):
and where they don't feel safe. They're not going to
allow the government to hold seventy five percent of the
people arrested at the state level. And so we have
to find the middle ground what works. And the private
charity ball system is a crucial part of that infrastructure
because it does one thing. It gets people to court.
It gets cases so they're not delayed. It gets people
(39:20):
so victims can get justice. If you want to wonder
why cases takes long, it's because people don't show up
for court. And if they don't show up for court,
their cases put on hold.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Okay, all right, No, I definitely agree to you that
we need to find something that's closer to the middle
and also some way of making sure that states are
being held accountable for the federal government deciding that they
want to try someone because we see just kind of
on a national level how that goes, and to hear
from you Ken about the costs on the states, you know,
(39:53):
that's not sustainable, especially during a time where states like
Georgia we're doing a pretty good job of you know,
running a pretty efficient budget and making sure that we're
within you know, the numbers that we need to be,
whereas some of our other states like California and Texas
or not Texas, California, York are you know, running at
you know, deficits for for an increased period of time.
(40:15):
And it's not fair on the other states for them
to put that on us. But Sham, I think you
had a direction that you were going to go with.
Speaker 8 (40:21):
This, well, I mean not really a direction, more of
a maybe getting not necessarily away from the point.
Speaker 10 (40:30):
But anyway, so if the larger issue or I guess
I want to address the pendulum, as that seems to
be how things work in most facets in America.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Typically you have.
Speaker 8 (40:44):
One one side, the other side one side guess they're
away for a little while, goes too far, and then
backlash same thing has an opposite swing back and forth.
Are there any agencies or people who consider themselves proponent
of trying to bridge said gap, since if one side
(41:06):
gets their way completely, we always eventually face an issue
seemingly no matter what the actual subject matter is.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
Sure, and those groups are called moderates. But the problem is,
for the last ten fifteen years we have put you know,
we have run off moderates. You know, we've also at
the national level. In the in Congress, we got rid
of the you know what was you know, we have
a requirement that you have to have a certain number
(41:36):
of people support something or or they can keep it
from coming to the floor. They can keep it from
voting if you don't have a certain amount of votes. Yeah,
so we got rid of the filibuster. You know, we
originally we got rid of it on limited things, and
we probably still have it on a few issues. But
when getting rid of the filibuster has done great damage
(41:57):
to the country because we no longer the filibuster forced
moderate moderation, because you couldn't get your extreme position through.
They couldn't get their extreme position through. The only thing
that could get through was something in the middle. And
once it passed, the next when that White House changed
sides or the Congress change sides, there wasn't this push
(42:21):
to under undo anything. Now we're living in this time
where you know, we have Obama after his eight years,
we have Trump. He spent his first year undoing as
much of what Obama did as he could. Then we
have Biden. He spent the first probably two weeks undoing
(42:44):
everything he could that Trump did, And so if Trump wins,
he will spend the first couple of weeks undoing everything
he can. We no longer live in this time where
we work together, and the reason why is because we've
gotten rid of the philibuster. We now to raise money
(43:06):
like Texas is the best example of where we've lost
the middle. Texas has always been a conservative state. Even
when it was under Democrat control, it was a conservative state.
But the problem is the Democrat Party didn't have room
for conservatives anymore, and so Texas is now a conservative
(43:27):
Republican state. Statewide office, a Republican generally wins by thirteen points,
and so the Democrats could win Texas already is a
good example. He has said he's a moderate. The problem
is to raise money for a state wide race in Texas,
you have to go to the big money donors and
(43:48):
the Democrat Party, and to get their support, you have
to state positions that then make you not able to
win a state wide race in Texas. Look at all red.
He has supported some bills, and he's done some things
that Cruise is highlighting. And there's been commentators that said,
you know, on their last debate, Cruz crushed him. It
(44:08):
doesn't mean he crushed him on policies. I mean it
didn't crush him as a person. He crushing them on
Texas policy. Texas is buying large a conservative state, and
he's pointed out that already has taken positions that would
be repulsive to a conservative state. And so that's kind
of where we are nationally. We need to find the
(44:29):
middle ground, but we have to set up an infrastructure
that will support the middle candidates because we're taking them
out one at a time almost every election cycle.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
I don't see that happening because I think when I
was growing up, they had blue dogs. They're gone, and
then like now, they call them the rhinos that are
quote unquote moderates to some extent, some of them, some
of them are moderates. They're pretty much going to be
for some reason.
Speaker 5 (44:57):
We call a bill that it's supported by everybody, when
one person from the other party supports it. That is
not a bipartisan bill. I mean, but somehow under you know,
twenty twenty four, if you get one vote from the
other party, which is the last you know, moderate, suddenly
it's a it's a bipartisan bill. You know, I remember
(45:22):
when did that start? You know, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
You think years.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
It was probably you no, even you know, during Bush
we still had a large contingent. And I would say
it's it's it's newer than Reagan because if you remember,
we had the Iran Contra scandal during Reagan and how
I read that, how he finally got out of that
was just having a press conference and apologizing for it.
I mean, if you were to do that today, then
(45:49):
they would say that that's an admission, which you did,
and we need to be impeached because you admitted yourself.
We're always gunning for the other party, and I think
that's also chasing off moderate candidates. I mean, why would
look I would I would probably. I think I have
the mindset to be a politician, But I have a
(46:10):
wife who is very private and she doesn't like groups
and doesn't like crowds, and I love her to death.
I would not want to do anything that would make
her uncomfortable. And so, I mean, you chase off the moderates.
And you know, I have two girls, and they would
just be mad if somebody said something really hurtful to
me about me in public and it was all over
(46:31):
the news. I mean, I know that that's part of politics,
but it chases off the moderates. It chases off people
that we probably should be pursuing or asking to be
in our government.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
As I remember, it was like even the guys I
think that are like super progressive, like all like AOC,
but over time they seem to all go to like
the middle some well in the middle of wherever that
party stands at the moment. But I thought she was
going to be real different. But as time went by,
she's pretty much like your standard your standard liberal.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
Well, I mean standard liberal is pretty far right now. Uh,
Because you would I mean, I mean Texas would classify
her as as further left than Pelosi. Uh, and and so,
but I wouldn't even say, let's don't even look at
what she says, what she posts on social media. Just
look at what has she passed. I don't think she's
passed anything.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
She goes along with whatever they tell her to do, or.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
Is she really a problem solver? I would say that,
you know, bye and large, most from both extremes the
parties are not looking for solutions. They're looking for headlines.
And so when you're doing when that's the way you're governing,
it makes it very difficult to find solutions.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
I don't think neither one of them care about solutions.
I think they like the status quo and a little
change here and a little change there. Not well they
say they okay, depends on what it is. I guess
we have to go like individualized. As far as criminal justice,
I agree this one too far to the left because
that's where we're at, and that's too far to the left.
(48:09):
And like you said, the people who live in those neighborhoods,
they're all listen to them, Bill, how did I say this?
There'll be some person who does it. They even live there,
and was just like, it's going to be better for you,
And then they live in there and they're like people
are getting murdered and getting out the next.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
What you're saying there, I think is the most important
thing that has probably been said today. Because we're pushing
reforms that really we're you know, the DA in La
County is saying, well, I'm doing this because I'm helping
this the criminal. And let's just look at murder statistics.
Fifty of all murder murdered people in the United States
(48:47):
are young black males, but by and large, the people
who kill them are also young black males. So for
some reason, in this bell or form movement, we've decided
to favor the murderer over the victim, over the person
who's dead. And we're stettying up policies that's kind of
like a revolving door that's get green light to commit
more crime. And where are these policies, Where are they
(49:09):
hurting the public more than anyone else in those very
same minority communities, because when I don't care, it goes
out faster in those communities. But the problem is when
the politicians will not acknowledge that what is going on
is hurting those very communities and they're not willing to
try anything else, that's when you know politics have gone
(49:32):
too far.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, but that's all probably, Yeah, that's some of left.
But I mean, I don't know, I don't think there's
a perfect solution as you said, go back to where
we were. But there's problems there as well. But you know, well, we're.
Speaker 5 (49:45):
Always looking for ways to improve the criminal justice system.
When I'm saying go back, you know, we teach in
our colleges criminology. We teach here's what we have to
do to lower crime. And we have a perfect case,
which is a good example during all this chaos. You know,
there's a case called Sanchez versus Alabama, I believe, and
that was a case where they had to live under
(50:06):
one of these temporary injunctions preliminary injunctions for like four years,
and they couldn't hold anybody in jail because the court
was saying, oh, well, they have a right to be released.
It doesn't matter if they say they can't afford, you
have to release them. Well, in the end, the case
was reversed, and so I did a podcast with the
sheriff and he said, look, we came back. We re
(50:27):
implemented a system of accountability, and we made it clear
to criminals if you don't show up for court, you
will be held accountable and you will not be released
again without a strong explanation for why you didn't show up.
And within about six months crime started decreasing. So I mean,
I mean it's going to take a lot of heart work,
(50:50):
but you know, we know how to lower crime. Part
of it's a mindset and we have to all work together.
But you know, when our minority communities are getting hurt
by crime increasing by a great amount, they have to
recognize that we have to have law enforcement and we
have to have the criminal justice system. Yes, we're always
looking out for ways to improve it, and it's not perfect,
(51:12):
but it's the best one in the world, I think,
and so we need I do think we need to
go back to what we know works and continue to
try to improve it.
Speaker 9 (51:21):
Okay, So so I have I have a question here though,
So I know on the campaign trail, like this is
a very popular topic though about like immigration. So in
your in your studies, have you seen like a huge
increase in like like crime from like you know, of immigrants,
(51:42):
which I call it illegal aliens or just migrants to it.
I'm not sure what's this that across.
Speaker 5 (51:51):
The United States. And I would say the immigration policy
goes hand in hand with the criminal justice reformed policies.
I mean, those are the allies that have been set
up were knee jerk reactions. I mean, if you think,
if you remember when Biden took office, he immediately with
a pen changed all of or got rid of all
of Trump's policies on immigration, opened up you know, he
(52:13):
had a stay in Mexico policy, so that if your
request for asylum was denied, you weren't in the United States.
You were in Mexico. So you got released back to Mexico.
You weren't in the United States. And so we we
opened this floodgate. And I mean, he you know, took
all the a lot of what was being used to
build a wall, and he just sold it off a
scrap metal and so opened up this this. Uh but
(52:37):
let's set aside the people the drugs that were coming in.
I mean, I did a podcast that haven't even released
yet where you know, we have this legal drug trade
now in certain states, mostly over marijuana. But the problem
is the cartels are coming in and they're taking over
our national you know, remote areas of our national parks,
(52:59):
and they're just setting up up operations and they're taking
over the marijuana business in that state. I mean, they
would say, I mean the article that I talked to,
the reporter said you know, the legal drug trade has failed.
I mean, yeah, the legal drug industry has failed. It's
been taken over by the illegal drug trade. And they're
(53:19):
bringing with the open borders policy, they're bringing in their
own workers. And they're not scared about it anymore because
we've we've decriminalized marijuana and so now the government, you know,
if they make in three hundred million dollars on illegal marijuana,
they're spending a huge sum of it to try to
ferret out the illegal operations that are now in the
(53:41):
United States. And those come in with a lot of crime,
I mean, because it's from the cartels. And we're seeing
that it's not just the Mexican cartels. We have Chinese cartels,
we have Russian cartels. I mean. And you know, I
posted a link to the story and it was immediately
taken down by Facebook because I guess because of the election,
(54:03):
we are not allowed to talk about cartels or anything
like that. Uh. And and they're an impact on immigration
policy and a crime. Uh. You know, Trump mentioned something
about gangs taking over apartment complexes and he was just
attacked even by the moderators. And then in the days
(54:26):
after and now all these videos are coming out where
you know, these gangs were taking over the apartment complexes
and renting them out, so you're paying rent to them
and not to the owner of the building. And the
government is telling the owners of the building that you know,
there's you know, they're trying to figure out what to do.
So yeah, I think it's a substantial problem. And those
two policies are hand in hand causing problems with public safety.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Okay.
Speaker 9 (54:50):
So so you would say that Donald Trump and they're
not exaggerating on an issue of the crime with migrants.
Speaker 5 (55:01):
No, I would say they're not. In my opinion, I
don't believe it's an overstated problem. And what's made me
say that is after the debate when he was attacked.
I mean, all these videos started coming out, and then
the owners started coming out, and then you know, we
have this interview with ABC between the vice presidential candidate
(55:24):
and he's like and she's trying to scold him, Oh,
they say, it's only a handful of apartment complexes, and
he's like, are you listening to yourself? When in the
United States, has it been ever been okay for gangs
to take over a handful of apartments in the United States?
And they're theirs. Now, I mean, I mean, no, that's
(55:46):
a big problem and we've have I mean, that's a
problem that we're having across the country, not on just
gangs taking over apartment complex, it's but squatters. For some reason,
we enacted some laws to protect squatters. And I know
we did it during the pandemic, but the pen is
over and now it's a cottage industry in California where
if you leave your house for a little period of time,
someone comes in and squat st and you end up
(56:08):
having to pay them twenty thousand dollars to get them
to leave because the laws have been set up to
protect them.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
Yeah, that definitely is a related issue, especially with squatters.
But I want to be respectful to your time, Ken.
I know that you stayed a little bit later, since
we started a little bit later. But is there anything
that if someone wants to know more, or if they
want to find out more information that you wanted to share.
I mean, if you want, we can share the information
we have that was presented on you, but I'll let
you take it away.
Speaker 7 (56:36):
Well.
Speaker 5 (56:36):
Sure, Well, first of all, thank you so much for
having me here today. I'd love to have intelligent conversations,
and I don't mind to be challenged. I don't even
mind to be yelled at a little bit as long
as I'm not being told you know that I'm just
an idiot. I like to have arguments. I like to
have be challenged on debates. But if people want to
(56:57):
know more information about me or my organization, you can
go to PBTX dot com The Professional Bondsman of Texas
dot com. We have a blog where we highlight important
news on the criminal justice front, and we also have
our own podcast where I talk about just criminal justice issues.
So if somebody wants to know what the new Jersey
(57:18):
plan is, we have an issue. We have a podcast
just about that. If you want to know what about
charitable belfunds and why some state organizations are looking to
limit them, we have multiple podcasts about that. And so
we try to educate lawmakers and the public about these
types of issues, and just like I'm here today to
(57:40):
try to do that. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
You're starting to welcome can.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
It's been a pleasure, And thanks you, ladies and gentlemen
for coming to an episode of Everyday Black Men Podcast
podcast Authentic Like mel Thoughts, we have a special guest
ken On here. Definitely check out the website, especially if
you want to know more. You may want to do
it after the electioncy I know people are getting heated,
but he's, you know, presented an argument. He's not trying
to make it about any political opinion. You course can
(58:07):
find our website at WWWWD Blackman dot com.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Our Facebook is the same, and our Patreon is E
B and P at patreon dot com. Thanks again, peace,
and thanks for coming again.
Speaker 10 (58:20):
That was
Started recording.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
He don't, Oh no, I just wanted to make sure
we were in a stable seat. Didn't realize everybody at
different things that came up.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to another episode of Everyday black
Man Podcast Podcasts for auth any blackmail thoughts. You have
your guests here, mister Kane. He's going to talk about
bail bondsman in Texas. We also have our normal uh
cohort with the writer read Sam Stylish.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
And of course myself Riker. Follow us on Twitter, ev
y d black Men, Instagram, every Day Bloe the n
Everyday black Man Podcasts Facebook page. We also have a
Patreon EBMP. You can find all episodes Davy there. First,
you gotta have exclusive episodes there as well. And last
and not least, our website is www dot Everyday black
Man dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So mark the show.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Let's go ahead and let's start the show.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Ken tell our listeners a little bit more about what
you do and who you represent, and we can go
into the topics from there.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
Well, thank you so much for having me. I would
say to start with I am a father of two daughters.
I'm I think that's probably the most important thing people
should know about me. I'm married to someone who's actually
an attorney as well. She's a lot smarter than me. Uh,
and so I don't get away with any crap because
(01:50):
I got For some reason, I got it to my
head I need to marry a smart woman. I you
know I have. I come from a very poor background,
but I had two public school teachers who taught me
the importance of education, and so I went to college.
I got a master's degree. I taught high school for
a couple of years, and then I went to law school.
(02:11):
I went to Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, and I
became an attorney. I became board certified in civil appeld
at law, I represented doctors and hospitals when they were
getting sued, and sometime I started representing bondsman and that
morphed into what I do today. I specialize in bell law.
I traveled the state of Texas, and I've written articles
(02:35):
on numerous bell issues across the country. I just had
an article published a week or so ago in the
Attorney at Law magazine magazine talking about increasing crime and
calling in to question the FBI statistics on crime because
there's other federal government agencies that actually track crime, and
what do you know, nine days after my article. I'm
(02:57):
sure it's completely unrelated because nobody knows who I am.
But nine days later, the FBI amended their statistics to
show that crime was up and not down. And so
I'm not saying I'm prophetic. I'm not saying they changed
their statistics because of anything I did. I just thought
that the timing was very interesting, an issue that I
thought should be something that should be addressed with the public,
(03:19):
and it was a growing issue. And then the next
thing you know, the FBI is agreeing it's an issue,
and they address it and brought their statistics in line
with the other federal government agencies that track crime and
showed that crime was actually increasing instead of decreasing.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, excellent.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I know no one likes to be prophetic when it
comes to things like that, but you know, certainly we
won't have accurate crime statistics. And if the FBI has
to mend their stuff, I mean it kind of reminds
me of the jobs numbers from not that long ago.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
Was that political Well, you know, it's too early, we
don't know whether it was political or not. Let's just
say let's assume it's not political. The FBI changed the
way they were gathering their statistics probably four or five
years ago, and so it's been a very bumpy conversion.
And you know, police agencies had to bring in additional
(04:13):
equipment that was expensive to be able to report to
the FBI into the new system. And you know, I
think I even say in my article, the two largest
police agencies in the country, LA or New York City,
we're not even reporting into the system. So how can
we even think that they're accurate if the two largest
police agencies in the country are not reporting to them.
(04:33):
So I think part of it is a conversion problem.
And then you know, anytime one party is quoting police
statistics and that's the only thing that they have to
support crime is going down and that everybody else is
just not seen it. And then when the FBI comes
out and amends it, you have to think, well, maybe
(04:53):
there was a political element of it at one point,
but I mean there's other explanations that get you to
the same result.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Right, Because I remember they were reporting the increase in
crime by statistics like it's one hundred percent, you know whatever,
And I was just like, but we just had a pandemic.
So I was just like, is that political? That sounded
political to me.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
But they were using the FBI statistics to say that
crime was going down, and that you didn't you couldn't
believe your eyes when you saw that crime was going up,
because you know, there's been there's been I mean, I've
been on a debate before on this issue where they
were using the FBI crime statistics as their single argument
for why crime was going down, and that everything else
that you see was not accurate or that you couldn't
(05:37):
believe it because it wasn't the FBI. So all the
other things were showing that crime is going up, and
especially in our inner cities, especially for our minority communities.
And so when you see that the FBI during the
middle of the election season changes their crime statistics and
now the new one show that crime is actually going up.
The only piece of evidence they had to show that
crime was going down was the old FBI statistics and
(05:59):
now they don't have them.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yes, I like the Lenthal question to that, So.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
What, well, one is what other databases that are out
there that measure crime that are yeah and give us
kind of like a scope. Is it just federal or
is it federal, state, local? And then on top of that,
are these other systems Well, actually it takes that back.
Are these systems using the quote unquote same definition of
(06:26):
to what crime is and what variables lead to crime?
Speaker 5 (06:29):
Well, I think different federal agencies look at different things.
Like the CDC tracks homicides, and so while the FBI
statistics before they were amended showed that homicides were going down,
the CDC statistics show that homicides were up twenty percent,
and so I think that's one of them. The DOJ
(06:51):
does certain tracking, and I think actually they do a
survey of crime. They do it and they've been doing
it for many, many years. And if you look at
that that that data showed crime was up across the board.
If you wanted to get into the minutia, you know,
the probably the most accurate data on crime is carjackings,
because insurance companies still require a police report before they'll
(07:14):
pay off on that insurance claim, and that data is
devastating for the people arguing that crime is going down.
And there's others. I mean, you can look at just
regional data like Harris County in Houston had a press
confidence saying crime is going down, it's where everybody's doing
a great job. And then weeks later they had another
(07:35):
press conference where it was disclosed that they had closed
two hundred and sixty something thousand cases, with the notation
that they just didn't have enough manpower to investigate all
those cases. So it's really easy to say crime is
going down when you close two hundred and sixty something
thousand cases.
Speaker 6 (07:52):
Without basically well and there was no resolution to it, right.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
No, No, they were just closed because they said they
had a lack of manpower. Though, I mean, if you
want to talk about politics, I mean that guy, I mean,
the city police chief ended up losing his job over that.
I mean, And really, the whole I think, the whole
reason why we're having this argument is because these of
what I would call bell ad bell reform things that
(08:16):
we've tried in our urban areas, like in New York
and also in LA have been devastating, and they've been
devastating because crime has increased. And the argument against that
has always been, well, no, crime hasn't been increasing, it's
been going down. And so now that argument has kind
of been decimated, and they don't even have the argument
that crime is going down, and so you would expect,
(08:38):
you know, if we're all politicians that are just looking
after the best interests of the community, then you would say, Okay,
what we've been trying is not working. We need to
try something new. I mean, New York has now rolled
back their bell reform statute three times, and it looks
like it's the number one issue in New York for
this election as well, and there's a couple of seats
(08:59):
in and you know, I would I would say that
the House of Representatives in the federal government is controlled
by the Republicans right now because two years ago crime
was a major issue and it determined multiple races in
New York and it looks like it's going to do
that again this election cycle because they still have not
resolved the rising crime issue.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Interesting. Interesting, definitely.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
You know, I like looking at, you know, the statistics
from both sides and if you know, we don't have
the statistics that everyone is utilizing and that there really
is pretty damning for the evidence.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Is there anything that the proponents of cash bail reform
are going into outside of citing this one statistic that's
been kind of disproven.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
Well, you can look at a lot of things. And
let's just take California in a nutshell. So a decade ago,
we passed or they passed Proposition forty seven, and the
argument was, we're going to reclassify certain felonies as misdemeanors,
and that's going to includ theft under nine hundred and
fifty dollars. And the argument was, these people, whoever they are,
(10:06):
are still going to have to respond, They're still going
to have to get they'll still be punished for the
crimes to commit, but they'll still but now since it's
a misbeaner not a felony, they'll be able to get jobs.
But then in our inner cities, in our urban areas,
we have prosecutors in California that decided they were no
(10:26):
longer going to prosecute theft under nine hundred and fifty
dollars once it was lowered to a misdemeanor. And as
a result, you can see over the last decade what's happened.
Shoplifting has taken off. Stores have closed because they can't
withstand twenty five thousand dollars a day in shoplifting.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
And then you know, then it's I mean, then it
becomes a much worse situation because look at starts to
affect the tax base. You see commercial properties nose diving
in their values. You see the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building
in San Francisco where they told federal workers to no
longer come to the office, work from home because it's
(11:04):
not safe. You've got buildings that are selling for thirty
to fifty percent of their value from just two or
three years ago. And you know Minneapolis and Minnesota, it's
not California, but it has similar issues because it's the
urban area. There's two buildings there that just sold for
(11:24):
nine percent of their value from the last time they sold.
Commercial default rates are going from have gone from five
percent now they're at forty one percent. So you can
see a direct correlation of bad bell reform measures increasing
crime having a devastating effect on public safety. And if
(11:46):
we don't want to call it crime anymore because we're
not prosecuting, it's still a public safety issue. If mom
and dad or Grandma and grand public can no longer
go to the CVS pharmacy or the Walgreens on the corner,
and now they have to take public transport for thirty
minutes or longer to get their medications to go to
the local grocery store. Then that raises public safety issues.
(12:09):
I mean you can see it. Also, let's just go
to Portland, Oregon, where they decriminalized all heavy drugs. The
argument was, if we will do that, then finally people
will seek counseling, they'll go into rehab because there's no
criminal penalty. Well, what happened. The criminal penalty has just expired.
(12:29):
I mean the setting aside the criminal penalty has just expired.
They did not renew them because the result has been
so devastating on the public. Drug use has gone from
six percent to twelve percent. People are overdosing. We're setting
records on overdosing every month, and the people the programs
(12:49):
they set up for rehab and drug abuse counseling, only
zero point zero one percent of people were actually reaching
out to use them. So it just confirms what we've
been saying along. You have to have the hammer of
threatening to send somebody to jail if they are unwilling
to go to rehab. And we have to have that
hammer every time because rehab has a seventy five percent
(13:12):
failure rate, So we have to have an incentive for
people to keep going back until they decide they would
rather be off drugs.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Can I ask you a question though, Yeah?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Sure, isn't something to be said about the fact that
our laws have taken away the rights of citizens who
are trying to protect themselves in general, right, even if
you look at Western in Portland, organ Right, Portland organ
is mostly a Democrat place and they're not higher on
people protecting themselves.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Right.
Speaker 7 (13:38):
So, yes, everybody can have the right to do whatever
drugs they want. But if somebody tries to break my house,
I should be able to defend myself properly with no
obligation to the law.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
But well, I think you and I agree on that
because but let me go back to your argument about
you know, no one should have the right to, you know,
take these drugs. I think I disagree with you. The
people that were pushing for these reforms, I think that
that was going to be their next argument. You have
a right to od if you want to. You and I,
as reasonable people, would say no, as a society, we
(14:09):
can't sanction overdose as a right for the for the community.
We need to be standing up that you can't do that.
On your other argument about the government is preventing people
from protecting themselves. That's an argument I use a lot.
I'm like, if the government is not going to protect me,
then at the very least, the government should allow me
(14:30):
to have a gun so I can protect myself. I mean,
that just seems like common sense.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
But understand of them, that's not what happens to.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
Your first point. Though, sorry to cut you off, I do.
I don't feel like it's unreasonable to say if you
want to o D you can, because people can eat
as many sandwich as they want and cause themselves heart
failure if they want to. Right, I'm a libertarian, so
my views may be a little bit obscure to most people,
but honestly feel that people should have body. You're telling
me if you want to do something that you're fine
to do it as long as it doesn't affect me.
(15:03):
When you start affecting me is when we have a problem. Right,
So I my argument against for the drugs is that
we allow people to become morbially obese. That affects our
system in many ways. Right, heart failure puts a strange system.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
What does the government do on policies on obesity? They
set up things to encourage people to lose weight.
Speaker 7 (15:25):
And so we don't think the government to do that
though I honestly don't think it's the government's place to do.
Speaker 8 (15:29):
We're getting away from the subject.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
Okay, I agree with you, but let me just finish
this thought. So the government has limitations on everything, and
the biggest limitation on what the government can do is money.
The things that pushing people, the policies for people to
be more healthy is so the government spends less money
on healthcare. The whole policy for having uh, let's don't
do drugs. You don't have a right to have to ode.
(15:53):
So so if you odeed, does the government have an
obligation to bring you back with nar can? That's the
whole point. Are we going to then, been the limited
resources that we have on spending all of our resources
bringing you back after you exercise your right to od.
That's the whole concept of where money comes into play.
We have limited resources and we don't We don't realize
(16:14):
how much those limited resources affect policies across the spectrum,
and they shouldn't expected should be affecting our bail policies
as well.
Speaker 7 (16:23):
I agree with you, but I think well, policies will
be lowered if we allow people to have individual rights.
That's that's that's where I think I.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Do agree with that because you can look at Portland
Morgon and see that that's absolutely not true.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Right.
Speaker 9 (16:40):
And I was going to say too, like that these
you know, the so called rights that wherever they do
have costs, like everything does. Like that's what we you know,
that's easy when we do it and go right. You
just have to balance those those the coasts versus the
benefit of doing anything.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
So my question is when it comes to the bailbonds,
ken you're saying that because they or some states, like
the Liberal states, either California in New York, when they
roll back on their bail bonds, so basically shortening the
net so it doesn't catch as much people or more
people can't go through the net and come back. In society,
it's increasing the crimeates or it's increasing the crimates or
(17:23):
keeping them high. And we need to actually morally broaden
the net so that we can bring more people into
jail and have more forms so that we lower crime.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Is that what you're saying, No, it's it's a very
a different argument than that. I mean, I think what
we don't. What the public does not realize is like
in New York and California, in our urban areas where
they're doing what I call bad bell reform, is they're
doing so they're doing a charge based release system. So
we're just releasing people on their promise that they'll come
(17:53):
back without having to put up any any collateral or
any security. In New York we call it release on
no bond. In California, were released on zero bond. In
Texas where they do it when it is granted it
is released on a personal bond, but they're all the
same thing. We're releasing someone on their promise that they
will return. Like in New York, they made a list
(18:16):
of crimes, and on those crimes, the judge has no
discretion but has to release somebody on no bond, so
they just are released on their promise. The problem is
that's true no matter how many times they commit that crime,
like catalytic converter theft. I mean, we would probably all
agree it's a low level crime. But the problem is
(18:37):
if you've done it once, this one thing. If you've
done it ten times, it's another thing. If you've done
it twenty times, it's another thing. Because as a result
of these policies, organized crime has learned how to make
thousands of dollars on each catalytic converter that has been stolen.
And so you're giving an incentive when you use these
policies which are just immediate release some because of the
(19:01):
charge that they were arrested for, without looking at their
criminal history, without looking at any of those other other
things to see if hey, maybe this is a continuing problem.
It just is a green light to commit more crime,
and the system can't. The system can't handle this. The
system gets overloaded with cases that puts pressure on them
(19:23):
to de facto dismiss to dismiss the cases because they
just have so many, and dismissal is de facto decriminalization.
Decriminalization is a green light to commit more crime. That's
what we're seeing across our urban areas.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
So what my understanding is is basically, someone goes and
commits a crime, goes to court, judge goes, Okay, you've
done this, So you're gonna go to the bail and
go through the bail process, and the bail processes basically
on your word, you'll come back and make sure they're good.
But that person goes out does the same thing, see
the judge again, and the judges are like, well, I'll
have many probably do anything. So your last case is
(19:59):
Mimi dismissing, And you know you just go back out
there and keep doing the same thing.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
No, no, no, no, I'm not saying your last case is dismissed,
but I'm saying you keep getting you know, you keep
getting arrested for the same crime. They can't hold you.
So without these type of policies, if you got arrested
three times for the same crime, the judge would say, well,
I'm not going to release you again because you're just
going to go do it again. There's a public safety element,
but we're tying the hands of our judges so that
(20:25):
they can't use their discretion and that these policies are
being perceived as a green light to commit more crime.
Speaker 8 (20:33):
So how do we.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
You know that moving forward? Because a politics is a
part of it.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
But at the same time too, at the end of
the day, you know, when it comes to truly resolving
all these issues, you know a law needs to be
put in place. So what laws would you recommend that
would help create a solution for this problem?
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Well, you know, the problems that we have is that
we have a separation of powers between the executive branch,
the judicial branch, in the legislative branch. So you know,
you're really kind of advocating that the legislative branch is
going to tell the judiciary judicial branch how to how
to run its uh its system. Uh. And so there's
(21:16):
limitations on what can be done. You know, there are
cases where statutes get held unconstitutional all the time because
they have violated the separation of powers. But where so
where we're seeing it happen is you know, where where
we're taking away the judges discretion on setting bail. The
statutes can say what the judge has to take into consideration.
(21:37):
And so when we're saying, if it's a charge based release,
no matter how many times you've been arrested for this charge,
if you get arrested again for this charge, you will
be released. That's that's uh, that's a problem in New York.
They they've made it where the judges can't consider dangerousness
of the defendant in setting bail. So we have these,
(21:58):
I would say, just ludicrous things that we're tying the
hands of the judges behind their back. So that they
can't do their job, which is they already know what
to do. And you already mentioned politics. Politics is kind
of always an issue, but it's become a huge issue
on these criminal justice reform issues and on bail reform issues.
(22:20):
And I know you know the audience that I'm talking to,
But we could, I mean, we could spend another hour
on talking about whether we have a systemic racist system
in place or not, which obviously I do not believe
that we do.
Speaker 7 (22:34):
Let me let me ask you this though. Okay, let's
say we get rid of cash Bill, right, but if
it wasn't for cash Bill, me being whwai am I
would I would have spent more time in jail than
I needed to.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Right.
Speaker 7 (22:44):
This is coming from a person who's experienced cash bail systems.
Let me ask you here's well, wait, let me get
to my question. Only cash bail system right with a judge.
These judges are slow, The court system is slow. So
there's another side to this that we're not speaking about,
where we say, hey, someone's sitting to jail in jail
(23:04):
for a minor crime for two years, right, that shouldn't
ever happen, but it does happen, And it did happen
in our previous system where people are set in jail
for minor crimes and lost their whole life. Is that
they did something they didn't do right, because they're the
amount of time they spend in jail, the amount of
life they lost compared to what they would have lost
(23:25):
in reality because of the slow judicial system that we
have in America cost this person years of their life
that they shouldn't have ever lost, right. And there's those
kind of errors that we make in malfunctions we have
in our system. Or let's even say someone's innocent of
a crime, there's no cash bail and they're sitting for
jail for something they didn't do right. And my personal
philosophy is if one innocent man has to suffer, then
(23:48):
our system is broken. Not saying that what you're not
saying that your point is wrong, that our cash bail
system isn't working. What I am saying is is that
our system in hold may need to be looked at
entirely because there's a whole other side of this when
it comes to judicial justice, along people sitting the terms
they serve and how it affects their personal life for crimes,
(24:09):
and I agree there are people who abuse these systems,
but I'm also I also want to point the fact
that our judicial system abus the citizens of this country consistently,
and we don't know where the middle is in figuring
this out right, because let me make.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
A couple of points on this. You know, let me
quote from a news Nation town hall. There was a
mayor who is a former judge on there talking about,
you know, the private charity ball system. So this is
coming from and she was a mayor of an inner city,
so she was somebody that that would be like minded
with with probably most of you all. And her this
(24:45):
was her point. She says, Look, if you don't have
an alternative to the private industry bail system that has
the same high level of accountability which means people go
to court and the same low faire to a peerate
because everything else has a high faired period. So until
you get an alternative to that, you don't have an alternative.
(25:05):
It's not like we like the private shirty bell system.
I understand that, you know, we're easy targets. But the
reason why the private shirty bell system has been around
for two hundred years is because it does one thing,
and it does it very well. It gets people to
go to court. Now, on your point about the courts
are slow, I mean, let's look at bail and taxas
(25:26):
I mean in bell and Texas. Since it's the job
of the judge to determine bail and it's reviewed on
abuse of discretion standard, the trade off is you can
file a motion to reconsider ball at any time. I mean,
you can file multiple motions to reconsider bail. And the
Texas statutes have limitations like on low level crimes you
can't keep them in jail longer than a certain period
(25:50):
of time, a certain period for a misdemeanor, a certain
period for a felony. And then I would just come
back to you and just say, you know, we want
to put everything in a little cookie cutter for the
criminal justice system. And the problem is, and I think
a lot of people arguing the advocates for change are
too but what they I think what everybody doesn't realize
(26:11):
is the criminal justice system is meant to be very individualized.
It is intended that we are only going to apply
the least amount of pressure to you to get you
to reform and become a productive citizen. So what that
is for me on a first time offender or what
that is for me as a ten time offender is
(26:33):
two different things. And I think that we lose track
of that, and I do agree we need to review
the system, do a system. While review, Do we really
want this to be a crime anymore? Because we're really
doing a lot of damage to our criminal justice system
when one county is prosecuting this crime and then you
(26:54):
go to the next county and someone's not prosecuting that crime,
and suddenly the public doesn't know who to believe. But
I don't think that we should be setting up policies
that cause the whole system to fail and cause public
safety to be called into question. I don't think that,
and I think that's what's happening. We're trying out things
(27:16):
that have never been done before, have not been shown
to work. And when we show we start having data
that says this is causing crime to increase, then the
only thing we hear is crime is not increasing. You're
just wrong. Is perception over reality And look at the
FBI statistics. Until this week the FBI came out and said, well,
they didn't even say it, they just changed them. And
(27:39):
that has been all over the national news this week.
So the question is, like, to your point, how do
we provide public safety and how do we do that?
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Well, yeah, I think that's I think that's a good
point for a black libertarian to pick up from, Like
what are some possible alternatives and some compromises that we
can do to bridge between the different means that we
have here.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
But I would say getting rid of law enforcement is
not an alternative. Getting rid of our hard criminal laws
is not an alternative. We've shown that with the defund
the police movement, and because I think every jurisdiction has
refunded in his increase, but we've also shown on the
drug movement in Oregon that has been an absolute failure
and they have admitted it and they've allowed the statutes
(28:24):
to lapse. So what I mean, we know what works.
We've been told for three or four years, let's try
this something else, and we have and it has been
a failure. So I mean the big shock is we've
done this before. We're committing the same mistakes we've made
in the sixties. In the sixties, we were feeling safe,
we were more forgiving on our criminal laws, and what
(28:44):
do you know, crime went up. The politicians couldn't decide
on how to address it. One side of the spectrum
refused to be engaged, and so we had a backlash,
and in nineteen eighty Reagan took office with his War
on drugs. I think we're just committing the same cycle
right now, but the pendulum has swung much further to
(29:05):
the left, which means that when it swings back, and
I think it's in the process of doing so, it'll
swing much further to the right. And I keep telling
my friends to on the left. Y'all, do not even
realize that you're being the catalyst for causing the pendulum
to swing so hard to the right because you're not
willing to recognize that there's a problem. You're not willing
(29:25):
to help address the problem.
Speaker 7 (29:27):
Oh so I want to say that to answer your question,
I do think there is a problem, but I do
not think that the problem is in a vacuum. I
think that there are a lot of factors that lead
to these problems, partly the economy. Right, if we go
back and look in the past, when the economy became horrible,
when it was harder for people to get jobs, when
it was harder for people to obtain wealth, prime skyrocketing, right,
(29:49):
So we can't say in a vacuum, oh well, this
one thing is why. We can say it contributed, but
we can't say this is why.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Right.
Speaker 7 (29:56):
So to answer your question will be very difficult. But
one of the things I do believe will help it
will move back to community enforcement. Smaller communities, smaller enforcement.
They have satellite police stations that are more community involved. Right.
If you look at the city of Atlanta, that's where
I live, the police stations and the people, the jails.
(30:17):
It's a disconnect. It's a total disconnect from community to government,
to how we govern, to how we police our neighborhoods
in our environments. And as long as that disconnect exists,
we will continue to see crime skyrocket.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
Right.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
And that's why I'm very big on providing individual responsibility
for crimes and protection. Not to say that we need
to get rid of the police, not to say that
we need to get rid of the government. But and
I know this is going to sound like a joke,
and I'm not trying to make a joke, but I
do like to muse extremities to prove my point. In Georgia,
If I put in Atlanta, the city of Atlanta. If
(30:54):
I put a bear trap in my yard, whatever it is,
I can't do that. I can go to jail. Right
If we do not allow people to fortify and protect
their homes, their neighborhoods, and their communities, then we're asking
for crime. We're asking for problems. If I don't feel
like the government has my back as a homeowner to
protect my home, my children, my wife, my family, my cousins,
(31:17):
my sister, my brother, then how can I feel safe?
If I can only wait to call the police and
they're so burning right by these changes that the government makes,
by these little micro laws that cause all of this
congestion in the court system and for policing, then what
am I to do?
Speaker 6 (31:35):
Right?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
At some point, we're actually what you're saying is what
gives me hope in the criminal justice reform movement, because
what we're doing right now is not sustainable the public.
You know, I mean Mayor Adams in New York. He's
got his own problems right now. But I heard him
on a podcast recently and he was just under attack
from the far left about what he was doing in
(31:56):
New York, and he was saying, look, you know, one
of the foundations of society is public safety, and if
you can't provide public safety, then you don't have a society.
I agree with that, and so I agree what you're
saying is what gives me hope, because what we're doing
right now is not sustainable. And since it's not sustainable,
the public, the people, very people you're talking about, are
(32:17):
the ones that are going to demand change. I mean,
who would have thought in the last In the last year,
the NAACP and Oakland issued a letter open letter to
all the local elected officials attacking them saying we need
a state of emergency on crime in Oakland, and they
were attacked. They were attacked by the sitting DA saying
(32:38):
you're just using Republican talking points, and the regional NAACP
came out and said, we agree with the local n
double ACP. Crime is a problem. It's epidemic, and we
have to address crime. And that's the problem right now.
When you've got the la of of of California, the
(32:58):
la DA and his office is saying, well, we just
have a disagreement on who the real victim is. We
think the victim is. The real victim is the defendant,
not the person who had the crime committed on them. Well,
that's a problem because then the criminal justice system, you know,
there's several things like you know, the reason why it's
important that the defendant not run is because we can't
his case can't move forward if he's not there. We
(33:21):
have to wait for them to come back, except in
limited situations. And if there's nobody, if the DA is
not in there being the voice for the victim, then
there's nobody in the courtroom arguing or giving the court
the perspective of the victim. And that's one of the
problems that we have right now in California. And that's
why in November, this Proposition forty seven, which was a
(33:46):
decade ago, it's again on the ballot for major rollback
and it's expected to win win and the DA gascon
he's also on the ballot to be defeated. He only
got twenty five of the vote in the primary and
because he made it to the last round because of
the way they do it, but he's expected to lose big.
(34:08):
So I mean, the public is the one coming into saying, Okay,
we gave these a try, these didn't work. We now
we know how to address public safety. We know how
to address crime, and we need to go back to
some of those things that we know that work.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
So my question is this is my problem, and it's
always been my problem with the left and pretty much
the right. They always have these large opinions on how
these quote unquote neighborhoods should be fits. And I'm like,
you guys don't live here, you know, you don't like,
where's the community involvement with the people local to you
know it's actually happening in the crime besides just talking
(34:43):
to a business because you know, they can just close
their doors today. These people who actually live here typically
they live here one two generations and they stay there.
So like, where's the aspect of community involvement and actually
making loss that you know, suit that place where they
live versus a larger you know, a pin of like
something I agree with New York don't know anything about.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
I agree with some of the things you're saying, because
you know, we are now in a period where nobody
can agree on anything. I mean, we don't have somebody saying, hey,
we have to have law enforcement. I mean we have
to have law enforcement to have public safety. We don't
have that anymore in our urban areas and we have
anytime there's an election, anybody that loses, well the election
(35:24):
was stolen. I mean the Supreme Court issues of ruling
that you don't like, Well, the Supreme Court is it's
not a valid institution. It's been it's lost its luster.
I mean, you know, I remember, I remember a time.
I remember a time when somebody would come out with
an important ruling. The political looters would say, well, we
disagree with it, but you know what, we're here to
(35:46):
respect the jury's decision. Were respect the decision of the
courtills don't. We don't do that anymore, and so you know,
when we that's part of the problem with the bill
reform movement is, you know, the private surety bell system
is an easy target. They're the low hanging fruit. Everybody
would like to change to something else. There's just not
anything else that works. And as we've seen over the
(36:09):
you know, the last few years, like New York in
acted reform, they have now rolled it back three different times.
And it just wasn't a couple of months apart, it
was three different annual years because they did it in
their budget. And so that's recognition that it's not working
and it's been rolled back, and it still has further
rollbacks to go because they still won't allow the trial
court judges to consider the dangerousness of the defendant to
(36:33):
in allowing or determining whether he should be released on bail.
What they've done is taking this long list of charges
that the trial court no longer has any discretion on
and they've made it smaller and a smaller and smaller list.
But on the opposite side, we're still continuing to make
felonies misdemeanors, and so we have a lot of crimes
that were used to be felonies that are now misdemeanors.
(36:54):
And then I mean, if you have an eighty percent
failure to a period in misdemeanor court in California, then
you know, and on top of that, they have the
Speedy Trial Act, which means if you don't show up
and you don't come back after a certain period of time,
the case has to be dismissed. Because of the Speedy
Trial Act. Then that system is being polluted and we
(37:16):
need to clean it up.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yeah, I definitely would the good Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
So let me say, so everything's been nationalized and it's
not been like that's what I heard like everything is nationalized,
like no, no.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
No, no. I mean, you know, the federal government has
its own system of bail, and then every state has
their own system of bail. That's the reason why in
New York they call it release on no bond, In
California they released on zero bond, they call it that,
and in Texas they would call it release on a
personal bond. Because every state used their own system. But
(37:51):
the federal system, I mean, there are there's good examples
of the extremes between the two and UH and the
federal system. We reformed that twenty five years ago during
Reagan's administration. At the time, they were only holding twenty
five percent of the people arrested until trial. Well, as
a result of the reforms and change over time, that
(38:12):
percentage now is seventy five percent of people arrested in
the federal system are detained until they go to trial.
The only reason why that's okay is are that that
is functional, is because the federal government is that the
main source of prosecuting crime in the United States, it's
the states. But the states can't they can't pay for
(38:36):
they can't afford to detain seventy five percent of the
people arrested, and that's that could never happen, and so
that's you know, but the problem is when the pendulum
sling swings to the far right this time, that's going
to be the argument we need to just detain people.
And that's when I mean people will not just like
they're not going to allow people to crime to increase
(38:58):
and where they don't feel safe. They're not going to
allow the government to hold seventy five percent of the
people arrested at the state level. And so we have
to find the middle ground what works. And the private
charity ball system is a crucial part of that infrastructure
because it does one thing. It gets people to court.
It gets cases so they're not delayed. It gets people
(39:20):
so victims can get justice. If you want to wonder
why cases takes long, it's because people don't show up
for court. And if they don't show up for court,
their cases put on hold.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Okay, all right, No, I definitely agree to you that
we need to find something that's closer to the middle
and also some way of making sure that states are
being held accountable for the federal government deciding that they
want to try someone because we see just kind of
on a national level how that goes, and to hear
from you Ken about the costs on the states, you know,
(39:53):
that's not sustainable, especially during a time where states like
Georgia we're doing a pretty good job of you know,
running a pretty efficient budget and making sure that we're
within you know, the numbers that we need to be,
whereas some of our other states like California and Texas
or not Texas, California, York are you know, running at
you know, deficits for for an increased period of time.
(40:15):
And it's not fair on the other states for them
to put that on us. But Sham, I think you
had a direction that you were going to go with.
Speaker 8 (40:21):
This, well, I mean not really a direction, more of
a maybe getting not necessarily away from the point.
Speaker 10 (40:30):
But anyway, so if the larger issue or I guess
I want to address the pendulum, as that seems to
be how things work in most facets in America.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Typically you have.
Speaker 8 (40:44):
One one side, the other side one side guess they're
away for a little while, goes too far, and then
backlash same thing has an opposite swing back and forth.
Are there any agencies or people who consider themselves proponent
of trying to bridge said gap, since if one side
(41:06):
gets their way completely, we always eventually face an issue
seemingly no matter what the actual subject matter is.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
Sure, and those groups are called moderates. But the problem is,
for the last ten fifteen years we have put you know,
we have run off moderates. You know, we've also at
the national level. In the in Congress, we got rid
of the you know what was you know, we have
a requirement that you have to have a certain number
(41:36):
of people support something or or they can keep it
from coming to the floor. They can keep it from
voting if you don't have a certain amount of votes. Yeah,
so we got rid of the filibuster. You know, we
originally we got rid of it on limited things, and
we probably still have it on a few issues. But
when getting rid of the filibuster has done great damage
(41:57):
to the country because we no longer the filibuster forced
moderate moderation, because you couldn't get your extreme position through.
They couldn't get their extreme position through. The only thing
that could get through was something in the middle. And
once it passed, the next when that White House changed
sides or the Congress change sides, there wasn't this push
(42:21):
to under undo anything. Now we're living in this time
where you know, we have Obama after his eight years,
we have Trump. He spent his first year undoing as
much of what Obama did as he could. Then we
have Biden. He spent the first probably two weeks undoing
(42:44):
everything he could that Trump did, And so if Trump wins,
he will spend the first couple of weeks undoing everything
he can. We no longer live in this time where
we work together, and the reason why is because we've
gotten rid of the philibuster. We now to raise money
(43:06):
like Texas is the best example of where we've lost
the middle. Texas has always been a conservative state. Even
when it was under Democrat control, it was a conservative state.
But the problem is the Democrat Party didn't have room
for conservatives anymore, and so Texas is now a conservative
(43:27):
Republican state. Statewide office, a Republican generally wins by thirteen points,
and so the Democrats could win Texas already is a
good example. He has said he's a moderate. The problem
is to raise money for a state wide race in Texas,
you have to go to the big money donors and
(43:48):
the Democrat Party, and to get their support, you have
to state positions that then make you not able to
win a state wide race in Texas. Look at all red.
He has supported some bills, and he's done some things
that Cruise is highlighting. And there's been commentators that said,
you know, on their last debate, Cruz crushed him. It
(44:08):
doesn't mean he crushed him on policies. I mean it
didn't crush him as a person. He crushing them on
Texas policy. Texas is buying large a conservative state, and
he's pointed out that already has taken positions that would
be repulsive to a conservative state. And so that's kind
of where we are nationally. We need to find the
(44:29):
middle ground, but we have to set up an infrastructure
that will support the middle candidates because we're taking them
out one at a time almost every election cycle.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
I don't see that happening because I think when I
was growing up, they had blue dogs. They're gone, and
then like now, they call them the rhinos that are
quote unquote moderates to some extent, some of them, some
of them are moderates. They're pretty much going to be
for some reason.
Speaker 5 (44:57):
We call a bill that it's supported by everybody, when
one person from the other party supports it. That is
not a bipartisan bill. I mean, but somehow under you know,
twenty twenty four, if you get one vote from the
other party, which is the last you know, moderate, suddenly
it's a it's a bipartisan bill. You know, I remember
(45:22):
when did that start? You know, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
You think years.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
It was probably you no, even you know, during Bush
we still had a large contingent. And I would say
it's it's it's newer than Reagan because if you remember,
we had the Iran Contra scandal during Reagan and how
I read that, how he finally got out of that
was just having a press conference and apologizing for it.
I mean, if you were to do that today, then
(45:49):
they would say that that's an admission, which you did,
and we need to be impeached because you admitted yourself.
We're always gunning for the other party, and I think
that's also chasing off moderate candidates. I mean, why would
look I would I would probably. I think I have
the mindset to be a politician, But I have a
(46:10):
wife who is very private and she doesn't like groups
and doesn't like crowds, and I love her to death.
I would not want to do anything that would make
her uncomfortable. And so, I mean, you chase off the moderates.
And you know, I have two girls, and they would
just be mad if somebody said something really hurtful to
me about me in public and it was all over
(46:31):
the news. I mean, I know that that's part of politics,
but it chases off the moderates. It chases off people
that we probably should be pursuing or asking to be
in our government.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
As I remember, it was like even the guys I
think that are like super progressive, like all like AOC,
but over time they seem to all go to like
the middle some well in the middle of wherever that
party stands at the moment. But I thought she was
going to be real different. But as time went by,
she's pretty much like your standard your standard liberal.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
Well, I mean standard liberal is pretty far right now. Uh,
Because you would I mean, I mean Texas would classify
her as as further left than Pelosi. Uh, and and so,
but I wouldn't even say, let's don't even look at
what she says, what she posts on social media. Just
look at what has she passed. I don't think she's
passed anything.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
She goes along with whatever they tell her to do, or.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
Is she really a problem solver? I would say that,
you know, bye and large, most from both extremes the
parties are not looking for solutions. They're looking for headlines.
And so when you're doing when that's the way you're governing,
it makes it very difficult to find solutions.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
I don't think neither one of them care about solutions.
I think they like the status quo and a little
change here and a little change there. Not well they
say they okay, depends on what it is. I guess
we have to go like individualized. As far as criminal justice,
I agree this one too far to the left because
that's where we're at, and that's too far to the left.
(48:09):
And like you said, the people who live in those neighborhoods,
they're all listen to them, Bill, how did I say this?
There'll be some person who does it. They even live there,
and was just like, it's going to be better for you,
And then they live in there and they're like people
are getting murdered and getting out the next.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
What you're saying there, I think is the most important
thing that has probably been said today. Because we're pushing
reforms that really we're you know, the DA in La
County is saying, well, I'm doing this because I'm helping
this the criminal. And let's just look at murder statistics.
Fifty of all murder murdered people in the United States
(48:47):
are young black males, but by and large, the people
who kill them are also young black males. So for
some reason, in this bell or form movement, we've decided
to favor the murderer over the victim, over the person
who's dead. And we're stettying up policies that's kind of
like a revolving door that's get green light to commit
more crime. And where are these policies, Where are they
(49:09):
hurting the public more than anyone else in those very
same minority communities, because when I don't care, it goes
out faster in those communities. But the problem is when
the politicians will not acknowledge that what is going on
is hurting those very communities and they're not willing to
try anything else, that's when you know politics have gone
(49:32):
too far.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, but that's all probably, Yeah, that's some of left.
But I mean, I don't know, I don't think there's
a perfect solution as you said, go back to where
we were. But there's problems there as well. But you know, well, we're.
Speaker 5 (49:45):
Always looking for ways to improve the criminal justice system.
When I'm saying go back, you know, we teach in
our colleges criminology. We teach here's what we have to
do to lower crime. And we have a perfect case,
which is a good example during all this chaos. You know,
there's a case called Sanchez versus Alabama, I believe, and
that was a case where they had to live under
(50:06):
one of these temporary injunctions preliminary injunctions for like four years,
and they couldn't hold anybody in jail because the court
was saying, oh, well, they have a right to be released.
It doesn't matter if they say they can't afford, you
have to release them. Well, in the end, the case
was reversed, and so I did a podcast with the
sheriff and he said, look, we came back. We re
(50:27):
implemented a system of accountability, and we made it clear
to criminals if you don't show up for court, you
will be held accountable and you will not be released
again without a strong explanation for why you didn't show up.
And within about six months crime started decreasing. So I mean,
I mean it's going to take a lot of heart work,
(50:50):
but you know, we know how to lower crime. Part
of it's a mindset and we have to all work together.
But you know, when our minority communities are getting hurt
by crime increasing by a great amount, they have to
recognize that we have to have law enforcement and we
have to have the criminal justice system. Yes, we're always
looking out for ways to improve it, and it's not perfect,
(51:12):
but it's the best one in the world, I think,
and so we need I do think we need to
go back to what we know works and continue to
try to improve it.
Speaker 9 (51:21):
Okay, So so I have I have a question here though,
So I know on the campaign trail, like this is
a very popular topic though about like immigration. So in
your in your studies, have you seen like a huge
increase in like like crime from like you know, of immigrants,
(51:42):
which I call it illegal aliens or just migrants to it.
I'm not sure what's this that across.
Speaker 5 (51:51):
The United States. And I would say the immigration policy
goes hand in hand with the criminal justice reformed policies.
I mean, those are the allies that have been set
up were knee jerk reactions. I mean, if you think,
if you remember when Biden took office, he immediately with
a pen changed all of or got rid of all
of Trump's policies on immigration, opened up you know, he
(52:13):
had a stay in Mexico policy, so that if your
request for asylum was denied, you weren't in the United States.
You were in Mexico. So you got released back to Mexico.
You weren't in the United States. And so we we
opened this floodgate. And I mean, he you know, took
all the a lot of what was being used to
build a wall, and he just sold it off a
scrap metal and so opened up this this. Uh but
(52:37):
let's set aside the people the drugs that were coming in.
I mean, I did a podcast that haven't even released
yet where you know, we have this legal drug trade
now in certain states, mostly over marijuana. But the problem
is the cartels are coming in and they're taking over
our national you know, remote areas of our national parks,
(52:59):
and they're just setting up up operations and they're taking
over the marijuana business in that state. I mean, they
would say, I mean the article that I talked to,
the reporter said you know, the legal drug trade has failed.
I mean, yeah, the legal drug industry has failed. It's
been taken over by the illegal drug trade. And they're
(53:19):
bringing with the open borders policy, they're bringing in their
own workers. And they're not scared about it anymore because
we've we've decriminalized marijuana and so now the government, you know,
if they make in three hundred million dollars on illegal marijuana,
they're spending a huge sum of it to try to
ferret out the illegal operations that are now in the
(53:41):
United States. And those come in with a lot of crime,
I mean, because it's from the cartels. And we're seeing
that it's not just the Mexican cartels. We have Chinese cartels,
we have Russian cartels. I mean. And you know, I
posted a link to the story and it was immediately
taken down by Facebook because I guess because of the election,
(54:03):
we are not allowed to talk about cartels or anything
like that. Uh. And and they're an impact on immigration
policy and a crime. Uh. You know, Trump mentioned something
about gangs taking over apartment complexes and he was just
attacked even by the moderators. And then in the days
(54:26):
after and now all these videos are coming out where
you know, these gangs were taking over the apartment complexes
and renting them out, so you're paying rent to them
and not to the owner of the building. And the
government is telling the owners of the building that you know,
there's you know, they're trying to figure out what to do.
So yeah, I think it's a substantial problem. And those
two policies are hand in hand causing problems with public safety.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Okay.
Speaker 9 (54:50):
So so you would say that Donald Trump and they're
not exaggerating on an issue of the crime with migrants.
Speaker 5 (55:01):
No, I would say they're not. In my opinion, I
don't believe it's an overstated problem. And what's made me
say that is after the debate when he was attacked.
I mean, all these videos started coming out, and then
the owners started coming out, and then you know, we
have this interview with ABC between the vice presidential candidate
(55:24):
and he's like and she's trying to scold him, Oh,
they say, it's only a handful of apartment complexes, and
he's like, are you listening to yourself? When in the
United States, has it been ever been okay for gangs
to take over a handful of apartments in the United States?
And they're theirs. Now, I mean, I mean, no, that's
(55:46):
a big problem and we've have I mean, that's a
problem that we're having across the country, not on just
gangs taking over apartment complex, it's but squatters. For some reason,
we enacted some laws to protect squatters. And I know
we did it during the pandemic, but the pen is
over and now it's a cottage industry in California where
if you leave your house for a little period of time,
someone comes in and squat st and you end up
(56:08):
having to pay them twenty thousand dollars to get them
to leave because the laws have been set up to
protect them.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
Yeah, that definitely is a related issue, especially with squatters.
But I want to be respectful to your time, Ken.
I know that you stayed a little bit later, since
we started a little bit later. But is there anything
that if someone wants to know more, or if they
want to find out more information that you wanted to share.
I mean, if you want, we can share the information
we have that was presented on you, but I'll let
you take it away.
Speaker 7 (56:36):
Well.
Speaker 5 (56:36):
Sure, Well, first of all, thank you so much for
having me here today. I'd love to have intelligent conversations,
and I don't mind to be challenged. I don't even
mind to be yelled at a little bit as long
as I'm not being told you know that I'm just
an idiot. I like to have arguments. I like to
have be challenged on debates. But if people want to
(56:57):
know more information about me or my organization, you can
go to PBTX dot com The Professional Bondsman of Texas
dot com. We have a blog where we highlight important
news on the criminal justice front, and we also have
our own podcast where I talk about just criminal justice issues.
So if somebody wants to know what the new Jersey
(57:18):
plan is, we have an issue. We have a podcast
just about that. If you want to know what about
charitable belfunds and why some state organizations are looking to
limit them, we have multiple podcasts about that. And so
we try to educate lawmakers and the public about these
types of issues, and just like I'm here today to
(57:40):
try to do that. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
You're starting to welcome can.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
It's been a pleasure, And thanks you, ladies and gentlemen
for coming to an episode of Everyday Black Men Podcast
podcast Authentic Like mel Thoughts, we have a special guest
ken On here. Definitely check out the website, especially if
you want to know more. You may want to do
it after the electioncy I know people are getting heated,
but he's, you know, presented an argument. He's not trying
to make it about any political opinion. You course can
(58:07):
find our website at WWWWD Blackman dot com.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Our Facebook is the same, and our Patreon is E
B and P at patreon dot com. Thanks again, peace,
and thanks for coming again.
Speaker 10 (58:20):
That was
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