I grew up during the 1960s and 70s which
unfortunately resembling some of the
turmoil be experiencing today and I said
I want to be part of the change and so
what I love to say is I it took me 40
years to get here but I'm here with you
guys changing the world now and I had
the opportunity as you heard to work in
the administration and it was just
mind-blowing to be able to sit in
meetings with cabinet members and and
and people who look just like all of us
here women men gay straight black Asian
Hispanic latina everything and we were
running the country so I had this aha
moment on the airplane I thought you
know when I was 14 I dreamed about being
able to make a difference in the world
but I said this time I'm in the room
when it's happening and I'm in the room
where I get an opportunity to make a
change and what I want you guys to
understand is you are in the room where
it's happening because John Jay is the
leading voice in what's happening for
justice in this country and in this
world so you've got a voice and we we
are depending on you all to use it
Carol Mason has been one of our
country's most important voices for
criminal justice reform during a long
career first as a private sector
attorney and then in the Department of
Justice where she headed the office of
Justice programs in August she stepped
into a new role as the fifth president
of John Jay College which to lead the
nation's top academic and research
institution for criminal justice
President Mason joins us today on
criminal justice matters for a
discussion about her vision of the
college and its role in the nation's
ongoing debate about criminal justice
reform Carol thanks for coming today
and congratulations so you've spent a
long career in public life in private
sector and in the office of Justice
programs how has that informed your
approach to leading a big academic
institution for 30 years primarily
focused on public finance and economic
development and in many impoverished
communities in terms of changing the
lives of those then I had the
opportunity to serve at the Department
of Justice and the last three and a half
years working on criminal justice reform
issues but but the thing that was very
helpful is having this deep
understanding through the names of how
communities operate how they work help
me with the issues of criminal justice
reform because as we know criminal
justice is not something that so when
you've been in the office and the
president's chair just really a few
months but have you seen that actually
happened now that you watched it from
the other side so his being of the silo
I didn't want to be President I wanted
to be John she was our
because we used along the research that
was happening here to our facility where
we have an opportunity which is helping
people because it's great for the
students as well
these young these men were young when we
heard about how access to this class
transformed their lives those who are
still in and those who exited and who
are now enrolled in CUNY colleges some
of whom have already just wonderful to
hear so there's over the course of proud
to see that we accomplished and
hopefully that's going to change the
country's thinking about how important
it is to support academic opportunities
so that brings me to mentioned early
this month you had a conference with
John Jay called smart on crime
innovations and the Pell transfer progr
is one of those that you mentioned as
worthy of constant support tell us a
little bit more about that conference
and why it was so important in that
justice issues and one of what that
means in what she said is that that
we're safe space for people to have
conversations tough conversations about
justice issues about and so we have so
many different voices represented in
some conversations were hard to have
that's why we need to have people whose
chair come from different walks of life
different perspectives is because a lot
of the commentary and the releases that
accompanies your appointment made a big
point of the fact that you're the first
African American woman to head John J
should that matter I think that it was
important from the reaction I'm getting
from students and faculty and staff here
yes it's important and a generation
responsibility
doing something like this one of the
great things about you having gone from
one world to the other is that you bring
both worlds together the worlds of
public sector government and in the
academic world one of the brought from
the world of justice official was the
government that it's really exciting for
students to see some of the great faces
and people that you work with tell us a
little bit about how you intend to make
those two worlds bridge for those who
don't know you were college roommates so
it was you know she will be here
visiting me regularly and so
I knew that she's going to be here not
to be disruptive but to figure out how
we can give her the opportunity to talk
to our C's so when I knew that she was
going to be here we found a politics of
immigration class and we went together
to the class and it was a wonderful
opportunity the chocolate students for
them to have this experience to hear
from somebody who spent eight years with
the President of the United States as he
was formulating these policy issues and
to hear how he made some of those
decisions and what I don't think the
young people understand is that we get
as much out of these interactions as
they do because I'm Laurin so much from
them I come around come away so
energized from interactions with them
and Valerie was just so excited she
tweeted about it the next day and then
Eric Holder's the first African American
came here to open up one of the roles
that John J has had in the past is but
it's been a sort of a convening place
for major players in the criminal
justice system both here and abroad to
deliver their visions of where they
think things should be well you think
that will continue under your
stewardship because for me it's
important that we serve as a convener to
bring people together to talk about
issues not just from home justice reform
education access because one of the
wonderful things about John Day
to go to college that's justice as well
is providing this access to opportunity
for that parent towards people's lives
and a great percentage of them are
Latino or Hispanic American which is
really interesting
exactly and among them are people who
are doctors were members of the dreamers
and that's a constituency you know that
hasn't really been talked about very
much and you've done some work on that
already here at the college because
people see John as a place to go to a
state space to talk about difficult
issues so when the administration made
the decision to change their approach to
daca students that was gut-wrenching
here we don't ask a peep about people's
immigration status but I spent two hours
one night in a row with students that
night the night the announcement was
made for in tears and I was in tears
because you know these are these are our
future
these are our future leaders and I want
them to have hope and to know that
people care about them support them and
so what was wonderful again because of
what John J is the next day the Attorney
General for the state of New York
announced a lawsuit supporting daca
students here at Dante and so it was a
wonderful educational opportunity for
them to see how how policy is made and
how we have different branches of
government how they challenge that
policy when it's made and so we have
this executive announced
retracting an executive order and then
they got to see in action the Attorney
General for the state of New York
accompanied by 14 other states to the
administration about the ability to
remove that will have to wait now for
the digital breakups to make a decision
so they're getting this this experienced
real time about how things happen in
this country so I think we are raising a
generation of leaders whose foundation
is that in whatever they do we've come a
long way since John Jay started as a
police education school but we still
have a lot of police here taking courses
and people who want to give them to a
police queer as policing change do you
think and how do you think John G
students will be part of that kind of
and they take the brunt system and they
are always ready to change they do a lot
of self-reflection and that's reflected
here no pun intended here at John Jay
they partner with us the NYPD partners
with us on a lots of things and so one
of the things I'm excited about is our
apple corer program so people are
getting John Day degrees and they are
making the commitment that they want to
join the NYPD when they leave and I
always when I first learned about John
Jay one
things I thought about thought was that
that whoever 50-plus years ago thought
about that our police officers who are
working in our communities ought to have
a liberal arts education to be better in
serving their communities was so ahead
of the times because we know from
research again that that when you have a
strong relationship between communities
they serve and law enforcement and when
you give them the tools to understand
the issues facing a community changes to
our system government understanding that
some community some are coming from
countries where police are to be feared
and so having our law enforcement
officers understanding these
sociological implications I so at
Otisville one of the several of the
students at Otisville commented on the
fact that they're taking this
anthropology class and have they have
that anthropology class earlier in life
they don't think they would have found
themselves incarcerated because it
helped them understand themselves helped
them understand their behavior and so
there's this idea that our law
enforcement officers are getting an
education of anthropology sociology
psychology I think will help them be
better
law enforcement officers and it helps
our students who are in classes with
them have a better appreciation
respectful and understanding of our John
Jay is not only preeminent nationally
it's preeminent internationally where do
you see us going or Junjie going in
terms of international weeks and
presence
for us in terms of the international
space is our cybersecurity work that's a
wonderful opportunity I think our
forensic science programs are wonderful
opportunities to educate people
internationally about techniques and
things in front you know the cutting
edge trends in these issues we are going
to the International Association of
Chiefs of Police annual meeting this
weekend I leave tomorrow I'm going to be
on two different panels but we're taking
John J material there so that they
understand these are programs that are
accessible online to people all around
the world so we think about where our
nation goes in terms of criminal justice
issues and reform John J students are
going to play a major part that's what
they're here for that's what the college
is always done but do you see them
playing this particular part that's
changing as our own conversations change
and they talked about these programs
they're doing these small investments
are making in neighborhoods that are
neighborhood generated but they don't
have the ability to assess them and I
immediately thought oh we can connect
our students who are looking for
research opportunities to send them in
to be the evaluators to be able to
assess you know collect the data analyze
the data and assess the data to help
it's a win-win they're learning in real
time and providing a resource that these
programs need to be able to capture the
evidence of what's happening with the
program
we are educating our future leaders of
this country leaders in the criminal
justice field they're all coming
together let's talk a little bit in the
time we have left about the general
landscape of criminal justice reform are
you generally hopeful about change one
you have to be as a college president
because most people don't recognize the
criminal justice system is complicated
because all 50 states have different
criminal laws they have and then when
you get to the county and so there's so
much opportunity to continue to change
in what why I'm optimistic is that John
Jay has a reputation thanks to the prior
president Jeremy Travis for being a
place to push these kinds of changes and
to bring people together to talk about
them so the change I am optimistic
because when I saw all those parts to
our smart innovations conference and saw
the excitement and saw that people
understood that they can continue to
leave this movement and they can
continue to demonstrate the people the
successes that they have and help share
that as successor to other people now
the challenge would be how do we how do
we share the knowledge that we're
building and making sure that everybody
has access to that
that's a challenge we'll have to work
through but I'm optimistic because we
have seen success we have seen progress
based on research and evidence and
evaluation we know again that if you
provide opportunities for education on
the front end if you recognize that many
of the many of the people in our
criminal justice system where victims
first and that we need to think about
trauma-informed responses on the front
end so we know a lot about from research
and evidence how to keep people from
coming into the criminal justice system
we know a lot of things in evidence and
research about how what we do with
people while they're incarcerated to
help prepare them for success outside
jobs connecting the family education
there's a common theme as though I'm
hopeful because what we've done is we've
gotten people thinking outside of the
silo busting is such an incredible part
of what John Jay does and what college
is doing eating universities to break
down the walls become so many different
subjects but the agenda that's ahead of
us in criminal justice is so complicated
and so difficult
anything from the opiate crisis to
prison overcrowding court reform what
would you put if you were going to put
anything up higher on the priority right
now for example that we shouldn't be
criminalizing people and putting people
in jail or in addiction we need to be
focused on how do we how do we deal with
the addiction issue which is not
incarcerated them but figuring out how
to give proper drug treatment again that
will reduce the people who are in our
criminal justice system so we can make
investments in other parts of
communities that really make a powerful
difference drug treatment mental health
treatment education jobs housing those
are the things that are important and so
in terms of prioritizing what I would
x is the notion that we need to look at
systems in a holistic way right and
coordinated systems because prices
you're going to have those same
relationships that you develop that's an
essential point the takeaway really is
that everything is connected can't just
solve one problem without go handle its
relationship to the others president
Mason it's been a real pleasure having
you with us today and good luck thank
you very much it's great it's been a
privilege speaking to president Karol
Mason today please let us know what you
think thanks for watching see you next
time
