Valentino Dixon Wants Sentencing Reform — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00marks one year since Valentino Dixon was
2. 0:02released from prison where he was
3. 0:03serving a sentence for a murder he did
4. 0:06not commit now that he's free he's eager
5. 0:08to have a voice on an issue that he says
6. 0:11impacts human rights and civil rights
7. 0:13two on your side's Claudine Ewing talked
8. 0:15with him and a retired judge about
9. 0:18sentencing reform unbelievable
10. 0:21after serving 27 years in prison for the
11. 0:23murder of toreano jackson in 1991 the
12. 0:27murder charge was overturned the gun
13. 0:29charge remained being free led to many
14. 0:31firsts for Dixon first time walking in
15. 0:34the park with his daughter first time on
16. 0:36national TV get busy living or get me
17. 0:38and he's gotten busy fighting for
18. 0:41reforming the criminal justice system we
19. 0:43have some of the worst sentencing laws
20. 0:46in the world very harsh excessive
21. 0:49extreme and it violates the Eighth
22. 0:51Amendment to the Constitution against
23. 0:53cruel and unusual punishment and this is
24. 0:55why we have over two million people
25. 0:57incarcerated because they're not
26. 0:59releasing anybody his numbers are
27. 1:01correct according to the prison policy
28. 1:03initiative
29. 1:04there are 2.3 million people in nearly
30. 1:062000 state prisons 109 federal prisons
31. 1:10over 1,700 juvenile correctional
32. 1:13facilities and over 3,000 local jails
33. 1:16this is a numbers thing okay and once
34. 1:19you reduce the numbers then you reduce
35. 1:21the prison population then you rid
36. 1:24yourself of mass incarceration i sat
37. 1:27down with retired Supreme Court Judge
38. 1:29penny Wolfgang I agree with the fact
39. 1:32that the drug laws have been unfair what
40. 1:34would you like to see changed as judges
41. 1:37I think we'd like to have discretion
42. 1:39because there are cases where the law
43. 1:42can be unfair without considering the
44. 1:45individual the crime itself
45. 1:46Dixon saw firsthand what happens in
46. 1:48prisons and to whom and a lot of the
47. 1:51sentencing guidelines is very harmful to
48. 1:55minorities that people are human beings
49. 1:57and everybody deserves the same care
50. 2:00compassionate concern is the next class
51. 2:02race nationality
52. 2:05while it was Dixon's colored pencil
53. 2:07drawings of golf courses that helped get
54. 2:09his story out that led to his release
55. 2:11his mission is sentencing
56. 2:13there's no other solution but to reduce
57. 2:16their sentencing guidelines we can talk
58. 2:18about reentry programs and we know that
59. 2:22the treatment inside the prisons is
60. 2:24horrible
61. 2:24so not only you're giving people too
62. 2:25much time but then they have to subject
63. 2:27themselves to a lot of abuse mental and
64. 2:29physical abuse by the guards inside the
65. 2:32prison system you saw I've seen it
66. 2:35firsthand 27 years only the state
67. 2:39legislature can make a change on
68. 2:40sentencing guidelines it's an issue that
69. 2:42Dixon plans to continue speaking out on
70. 2:45and he wants to meet with the governor
71. 2:47as well as state lawmakers meanwhile he
72. 2:49continues drawing traveling the world
73. 2:52with his artwork and he's working on
74. 2:54some unique video projects actually
75. 2:56right now he gives powerful testimony
76. 2:58because he's walked the walk and
77. 2:59obviously he spent his time well in
78. 3:02prison I mean really educating himself
79. 3:03about the issue as a whole absolutely he
80. 3:06does and it's also good to hear from the
81. 3:07judge too because one of the things that
82. 3:09Judge Wolfgang brought out is that there
83. 3:11are also victims and their families and
84. 3:13they don't have their loved ones moving
85. 3:15back so you have to consider that also
86. 3:17when you're doing sentences assimilating
87. 3:19must have been a challenge though over
88. 3:20the last year I would think still civil
89. 3:22rights day but he's making good progress
90. 3:24it's good to say Thank You Claudia
91. 3:25appreciate it