Addressing Mass Incarceration Creep with Judge Ray Headen
What if our justice system could be revolutionized by a simple, data-driven approach?
Discover the compelling insights of the Honorable Ray Hedden, who introduces the concept of "Mass Incarceration Creep."
In this final segment of the Disruptor Podcast, hosts John and Jan uncover with Judge Ray Headen the subtle disparities in sentencing that disproportionately affect poor Black males.
They emphasize the urgent need for comprehensive data analytics to ensure fairness and equality in our judicial system.
Ray shares his ambitious initiative to create a database that provides judges with crucial information to maintain judicial discretion while promoting just decisions.
Judge Headen discusses his initiatives to improve Ohio's judicial system by introducing data analytics and insights to ensure fairness and equality in sentencing.
The conversation touches on the socio-economic impacts, racial disparities, and potential cost savings of implementing a data-driven approach.
The episode emphasizes the necessity for legislative support and civic action to bring about meaningful change in the criminal justice system.
***
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Your Feedback Matters: How did this episode resonate with you? Share your thoughts, insights, or questions. Your engagement enriches our community.
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Quick Connect Call:Dive deeper into the discussion. Book a 15-minute chat with John Kundtz -> Schedule here. Stay Updated: Don't miss out on further insights. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and our Blog
Addressing Mass Incarceration Creep with Judge Ray Headen
What if our justice system could be revolutionized by a simple, data-driven approach?
Discover the compelling insights of the Honorable Ray Hedden, who introduces the concept of "Mass Incarceration Creep."
In this final segment of the Disruptor Podcast, hosts John and Jan uncover with Judge Ray Headen the subtle disparities in sentencing that disproportionately affect poor Black males.
They emphasize the urgent need for comprehensive data analytics to ensure fairness and equality in our judicial system.
Ray shares his ambitious initiative to create a database that provides judges with crucial information to maintain judicial discretion while promoting just decisions.
Judge Headen discusses his initiatives to improve Ohio's judicial system by introducing data analytics and insights to ensure fairness and equality in sentencing.
The conversation touches on the socio-economic impacts, racial disparities, and potential cost savings of implementing a data-driven approach.
The episode emphasizes the necessity for legislative support and civic action to bring about meaningful change in the criminal justice system.
***
Engage, Share, and Connect!
Spread the Word: Valuable insights are best when shared. Share this episode with peers who may benefit from it if you find it insightful.
Your Feedback Matters: How did this episode resonate with you? Share your thoughts, insights, or questions. Your engagement enriches our community.
Collaborate with The Disruptor and connect with John Kundtz.
Quick Connect Call:Dive deeper into the discussion. Book a 15-minute chat with John Kundtz -> Schedule here. Stay Updated: Don't miss out on further insights. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and our Blog
This is the third and final segment of our recording with the Honorable Ray Hedden.
Speaker 1:
In this part, jan and I will dive deeper with Ray around the concept he coined Mass Incarceration Creep where we will get into knowing and better understanding the initiatives Ray was doing and where he was working and how he felt it would improve the overall judicial system in the state of Ohio.
Speaker 1:
In addition, it would save us taxpayers money us taxpayers money. His attempt to bring data, analytics and insights, fairness and equality into the sentencing process is something that he had a passion for, and I hope you learn about what he was doing and I hope you take the causes that Ray was trying to work on as a judge and continue to move them forward as part of his legacy. Hey, ray, I want to move on to a concept that you brought up as part of the prep, and I really like this because I see this sort of concept happen all the time in my world, but I really didn't thought about it in your world and you bring up this concept I think you've actually coined it, this mass incarceration creep and I'd love to have you spend a few minutes just talking about how you came up with that and sort of why it is, and I think does then lead into what you're trying to do to fix the problem in the United States have some type of relationship to the criminal justice system.
Speaker 3:
They're either in jail, on parole, etc. And the question of data is fundamental in there and it has only been pointed by me because this is new stuff and hopefully we'll add to the rubric of the solution to mass incarceration, because mass incarceration is not holistic. It's made up of individual decisions by individual judges and individual prosecutors who charge people with crimes, and maybe charge some people with one crime and charge them with another group of another crime. Without data, we just don't know how all of that is playing into, whether and how there seems to be so much more impact in our communities of mass incarceration of poor black males particularly than other groups or other minority groups in proportion to the population. Obviously there's the issue of who's guilty and who's not. That is absolutely going to always be the case.
Speaker 3:
And no, I am not and no one else in this movement is trying to take away the discretion of judges to sentence as they please, because that is why they're elected, that is their job.
Speaker 3:
So they are bound by our canons of ethics and by our duty as judges to send people to prison. So in fact I'm totally against that. But the issue of whether or not mass incarceration creeps into our system because of lack of data is real. If somebody commits the same crime and gets two years and another person who's African-American or whatever gets 10 years, that extra eight years, that's where the mass incarceration is. That's what I call the creep into the system of mass incarceration. It's the individual differences, through the lack of data, that sometimes judges just don't know, the prosecutors just don't know, the defense counsel just doesn't know, because, like all of those people can use data to influence whether or not there is like disparate treatment and inequality in the system. And so that's what I'm hoping to have this database do is to take the lead on mass incarceration, stopping it and liking this part of the rubric at universities and other places where I haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1:
It's an interesting point because I think the one point I want to jump on or highlight it may not be intentional, right, these are good people trying to do good things, but I think you're saying and the three elements that I started to see that can bubble up that your initiative can solve is certainly fairness amongst everybody, and it could be fairness across geographies, or fairness across social, economic or just race in general, but there's a huge taxpayer implication, right, we all pay taxes in the state of Ohio. If I can't use data to make good decisions, I probably am spending more money than I need to and there's just the impression and probably the reality that there's racial inequality throughout the system.
Speaker 3:
Right, we don't have the data, so how do we really know? And literally, john, mass incarceration creep is expensive Because if we don't have the data.
Speaker 3:
It's about $20,000 a year to imprison someone. That's the cost of a college education. Beyond that, there's costs to society and to human beings when somebody over here gets gets for the same crime three or five years hopefully not talking about non-violent offenses, drugs and a lot of it relates to consecutive sentences and who gets consecutive sentences and who doesn't, and so all of those kind of measures lead to stretches of sentences that might be in need of research data. It is not necessarily whether they're guilty or innocent. It's really more about the data to make sure that the process is truly fair. We're talking about the differences between the sentences. Again, no one's trying to say that judges can't sentence with their own discretion, but if they don't have the data, maybe that creed is unintentional, as you said.
Speaker 2:
So everybody that has ever heard of Lean Six Sigma ever knows about the Swiss cheese effect right, where you have a whole bunch of pieces of Swiss cheese lined up in a row and, although they all have holes in them, if the holes are misaligned, that issues and processes won't be able to fall through the Swiss cheese, but those holes align and then things can pass through the gaps and without data you can't really figure out whether or not the holes are aligned or they're not aligned or if it's just happenstance. Look at the business world right, and we have real-time tools that are able to monitor down to user click rate when it comes to how they're interacting with a site in real time. I mean, if you can use that data ethically, then it really blows things wide open. I mean you are able to garnish insights. You put out something, the data comes back, the data is what it is and you gather insights from said data that your job is not to manipulate it. Your job is to interpret that and to make sure that this is where it's sitting. This is how it is.
Speaker 2:
But if you have these ability to measure and predict trends and showcase, here is how this has been over a period of time, I was dumbfounded that that didn't exist, but with the tech that we have today and all of the abilities that we have, there really is no reason that something like this shouldn't exist. I know that Uncle Sam is a little bit slower when it comes to adopting things, coming from somebody that spent six years in the Air National Guard. At this point, I think that these tools have been in the business world for so long at such high capacity that there is no excuse left on the board as to why the judicial system shouldn't be using something like this not only in Ohio but also around the country, and also from a conservative Republican perspective even.
Speaker 3:
It makes sense to invest in data. Right now, what we're doing potentially with mass incarceration creep is making our country less competitive. That makes our country less competitive. That makes country less competitive. Well, that makes our country less competitive. That makes Ohio less competitive. That makes Cuyahoga County less competitive. Well, right now, employers are looking to train ex-felons even because, like literally, there's so many jobs.
Speaker 2:
And you said it costs what like $20,000 a year to incarcerate. There's no way that I would ever make a business decision that equates to $20,000 without data-backed insights. It's mind-boggling that we're making decisions on people's livelihoods and then also taxpayer dollars to the tune of $20,000 without data-backed insights.
Speaker 3:
And there are 50,000 people right now. That's the size of Lakewood, ohio or Euclid, ohio, I believe. Every man, woman and child is incarcerated in Ohio. Our costs go up, our inefficiency goes up. Judges don't have the data. They may stay like five years when it could be probation. If most of the judges are doing probation in your county and you've just given somebody five years, you made up, like you said, a hundred thousand dollar decision that, like literally, doesn't always measure up because we don't have the data.
Speaker 2:
You said, well, 50,000 and 20,000, that's a billion dollars.
Speaker 1:
just for everybody's reference, it comes down to fiscal responsibility, right, both as taxpayers and the government. It comes down to fairness, right, making sure that person A is being treated the same as person B and person C and et cetera, and then try to take out this sort of implicit bias or explicit bias, or even the racism in our systems. And so I think you know the cost of not having this data is huge. You can take it to the next step. You can do the back end analysis, right. So if person A commits a crime and is guilty, but the data suggests that probation is the right thing, then you can put them on probation and you can track them. You can track whether or not they repeat or something happens right or do they reform and move on and become productive members of society. Or you can stick that person into five years of incarceration and then track them on the back end and see what happens when they come out after five years, and then you can start to make these.
Speaker 1:
In my world as a consultant, it's very simple. We collect data, we document facts and findings which are very binary. They're true or false. We draw upon those facts and findings, we draw conclusions and from those conclusions we make recommendations to help you guys as judges on being fair and equitable, but also on the back end, to make sure that what you're doing is actually accomplishing the goal of helping people become.
Speaker 1:
I think the goal is still to get people to come back into society as productive members, and I think you make a great point on this isn't about guilty or not guilty, right? The justice system, I think, does a good job of determining whether or not you're guilty or not. It's what you do once you're determined to be guilty. And how do you treat people fair and how do you have some fiscal responsibility? Again, you always follow the money in these situations, unfortunately, unfortunately. But if we can be more fiscally responsible, then we can spend that money on something that maybe can help others instead of incarcerating them. We can send them back to school or give them some training.
Speaker 2:
Or yeah, john, to your point that it costs twenty thousand dollars a year to incarcerate somebody. What are the alternate costs? Right, the alternatives, but that twenty thousand dollars a year to incarcerate somebody. What are the alternate costs? Right, the alternatives, but that $20,000 a year? What if, rather than imprisonment, you have like probationary period, and then the sum of that money is allocated to an educational program or a trade program to help that person get a job, or I think Jan that's a billion dollars a year.
Speaker 3:
Oh, a year? Yeah, that's a billion dollars a year. Like I said, that's where the mass occurrence. If there's eight people every year collectively in Ohio, 15,000 people at $20,000 a person, it's a billion dollars for every year of incarceration.
Speaker 3:
So every time there's a decision made by a judge and I think I'm one of the first judges who raised the issue of cost a lot of it comes down to what we started to talk about at the beginning, where maybe I approach problems differently as a result of being plucked out of the inner city of cleveland 50 years ago and now being in a position where I can state things with a level of authority because I have gone to the best schools in the United States of America and maybe look at things and say things that are reflective of the diversity of where I come from, both from the inner city as well as from bigger heights in Ohio, which are very wealthy places, I think this is a perfect time and we're talking about financial responsibility right now, but the other part that I'm extremely interested about you touching on, Ray, is the social effect, the social costs of mass incarceration.
Speaker 2:
So why don't we talk a little bit about the social costs? You know the billion dollars is a big number and, you know, catches everybody's eyes. But what up this way, when me and John talk about the empathetic connection and understanding where somebody is coming from, that's what I'm really feeling right now is what is those social costs that come with mass incarceration?
Speaker 3:
No doubt about it, and I think that's like the unique perspective of me coming from Cleveland and the inner city and knowing where people are. And so when you look at families, for example, in inner city areas, there's decimation because black males are incarcerated. Because black males are incarcerated, literally, families are. You know, everyone talks about the welfare queens, but how can you have families when men aren't there? They're incarcerated for whatever reason. We're trying to make it easy for criminals. What we want to be able to do is make our system fair and hopefully, if our system is fair, then the other thing that's a real problem right now, in 2020, is the lack of co-opness and faith in our judicial system, and you have mothers seeing their children go into the criminal justice system as soon as they become teenagers.
Speaker 3:
You get a decimation of communities that are already at the place where they're in danger of breaking the fabric of middle class values or never even achieve that, and that's what I was taught years ago when there were middle class values and hard work the whole nine yards.
Speaker 3:
What I'm afraid of and what needs to be addressed from a disruptive standpoint right now, is that the differences in those who are economically integrated, economically integrated, socially integrated, who have the same values as everybody else.
Speaker 3:
There is a disruption that needs to occur right there, because so many people and I walk in my own community all the time are without that.
Speaker 3:
You see it in the nature of where people are surprised by violence and the riots and things of that nature surrounding really something that, and, when you think about it in a way, our justice system missed it, and the claim of places where there was unnecessary violence by police was something that had not necessarily been addressed and the violence occurred was reflective of the social places where people were, where the lack of being able to have a voice, as well as the ability to have people listen to that voice, is something that we need to really address and is beginning to be addressed in the 2020s area, hopefully without the violence anymore. Obviously, that was not the way to go, but people shouldn't be surprised, though, because what I'm really trying to do as a judge is to make sure that stuff is addressed fairly and equally, and people need to hear that we're caring and that we're concerned and that there's a problem. We want to have the data to address.
Speaker 1:
There was a lot of pent up demand. I think that again shook up the snow globe, which it was not pleasant but it was probably necessary. We've had this great discussion, ray, and you've brought up some really great points just about how long it's been around and some of the problems that you're trying to fix and how you disrupt this sort of status quo within the judicial system. As we wrap up, I've doubled in the details in these things, right, so we've identified the problems. We empathize with your constituents and the stakeholders. How do you vision going forward? What are the next steps? Those kinds of things, and then we can wrap up this podcast importance of now.
Speaker 3:
It can't be underestimated again. That's why I wanted to use the honest term inflammatory language, because it's so easy for this issue to continue. Blue River Task Force hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on documents over the last 25 years saying that data is needed and yet nothing has been done. There is a reason why that hasn't occurred and what we need to make sure is that, like whatever we do right now, because this is a moment in time where momentum is out there and it is on the side of justice and fairness and rightness that has to be done. I've been a leader on it. I want other people to join in the leader. That's why I'm on this podcast.
Speaker 1:
What can the average Joe citizen do within the state of Ohio to help your cause.
Speaker 3:
The database is a legislative effort, so it needs to be enacted into law. It is the Ohio General Assembly and the governor will see legislation in 2021 to enact the beginnings of the criminal sentencing database. When you vote, you make sure you also contact your legislators to make sure that they know that this is silly not to have data in the 21st century and the performance of our judicial system. So those are tangible steps right now that can be taken by anyone. Be aggressive, be out there. Don't be silent, because it has proven over 25 years that silence will just let the status quo continue. I love it, all right.
Speaker 2:
I appreciate everybody taking the time to tune in today. John, I feel that a lot of eyebrow moments and a lot of light bulb moments throughout this entire episode. So this is why I'm really excited that the disruptor is a thing. All of these amazing people out there doing these disruptive things, shaking the snow globe, trying to improve, really improve the quality of life of everybody involved in all of these processes right, nobody ever comes into these positions being an innovative disruptor with the intention of like, okay, I'm going to try to shake this snow globe just so I can take it and look at the beauty for a split second and then smash it on a brick. Generally, they come in, they shake the snow globe and just watch all of the beauty that comes out of that disruption.
Speaker 2:
Judge, I really admire this battle you've been fighting for years. Getting to the point when I was going back through and I was listening about the life story and everything like that. One thing that really stood out to me just now is you said you still go and you walk around your old neighborhood and really stay in touch with that piece. There's this quote from a poem called If by Rudyard Kipling. Right, and I read this poem every morning and it really stuck out to me when you said that. And it says if you can walk with kings but maintain the common touch, and the entire poem is about how you can really become a man and stand on your own two feet and live your life with character, and live your life with integrity and with values.
Speaker 2:
That statement right there solidifies Ivy League schools the ability to be a great person in law, being appointed to a judicial seat, but walking with kings and maintaining the common touch. There's no other reason that you want to vote for Ray. Outside of any of those other reasons. Let it be because he has not lost that common touch, and I think that is extremely important when it comes to somebody sitting in that seat. Bless you, thank you, john.
Speaker 1:
I'll let you wrap up. I just want to say, actually, that those are really inspiring. That poem is inspiring. I think Ray does fit that bill. I wanted to say, ray, thanks for coming on our show, john, thanks for hosting us and having us have the faith in us trying to build this theme out of the Disruptor series, and I wish you all the best of luck, ray. And uh, I'm glad you're my friend, and uh, it will just keep. We'll keep disrupting and we'll keep moving forward. Buddy, thanks, thank you.