I'm Jonathan K. Parton. This is K. Puck. Carol Mason is the president of the John J. College

of Criminal Justice. The last time she was here, it was 2018. And we were discussing the

criminal justice system and how it criminalizes the poor. Today, we're talking police reform

in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent trial and conviction of Derek

Chauvin. Mason tells me that she has rethought some of the things we discussed three years

ago. She also reveals her past work with Minneapolis and the man who would go on to become its

police chief, Madaria Ardondo. But for Mason, if we are ever to heal this nation's racial

wounds, there is one issue that must be dealt with, the fear of black people. Here is

let's talk about it all right now. Carol Mason, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you

for having me. So when we spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2018, I can't believe

how fast time has flown. We were talking about criminal justice reform and basically criminalizing

a poverty and how, you know, basically what we do in the United States is people go to

jail because they're poor. And among the many things you said, you said we should be creating

mental health courts, drug courts diverting people from prison in jail. You said that the

problem we have now is we think prison is the only way to hold people accountable when they

break the law. And then here's the key thing that you said it's much more of a better investment

to invest in people in educating them on the front end than having to incarcerate them.

And those quotes jumped at me because the conversation we're having today is more

along the lines of not incarceration of people, but policing and how police have gotten

themselves into all of these different things, whether responding to people in mental distress,

responding to people who are having episodes related to drug addiction. And now people

are wondering, wait, do we really need to call the cops for that? Do you think that the conversation

...