You're listening to Comedy Central, Please welcome Alec carricat Tanis Why thank you for having Thank you so much, Welcome to the show. You you have a really interesting story, Alec, because you know, you worked as a public defender. You've worked in the justice system for a long time. You're part of many organizations that fight for people who are incarcerated unjustly or in a way where they can never find their way out of the system, which is unjust
in a in a different way. Um, but a lot of your notoriety has come from your Twitter threads and how you break down the world, the way we see policing in the country, and the way even liberal organizations, funny enough, are part of the problem. So let's let's
start with that part. You know what made you decide to not be looking at Fox News, not be looking at you know, right wing outlets, but rather say no, New York Times, l A Times, Washington Post, you need to change the way you talk about policing in America. I began this work because I care so deeply about safe everyone's safety. You care about violence in our communities, and as I was going around the country fighting these injustices, the cash bail system, police abuse. All over the country.
We're running into obstacles, and one of the main obstacles was this status quo approach that many progressive people have. And it's not their fault, really, right. We're bombarded constantly in the media with what we call capaganda, and capaganda has really I think three main functions. The first function of capaganda is to narrow our conception of what safety means. We're constantly being told that there's quality threats around us.
But the threats that the media and police and certain large corporations want us to be focused on are not the things that actually most determine our safety. So, for example, you've seen all over the country um uh taught conversations about retail theft or a wave of crime, right, But you don't hear is about the epidemic of wage theft. Wage theft costs fifty billion dollars every single year. Wage theft alone is about five times the value of all robbery, burglary, larson,
the shoplifting combined. And why are we not hearing about it? And I think it's because you have this law enforcement system. I use that system and quotes because police want us to call them law enforcement, but in reality the only enforced some laws against some people some of the time. So so let's let's let's talk about that that. You know, there's a disconnected feels like sometimes in the conversations we have in America, because on the one hand, many people
will agree that law enforcement needs overwatch. You know, many people will agree that law enforcement um that isn't in some way regulated by by an outside body, will run rampants. But at the same time, there are many communities who will still say yes, but we we still need some form of law enforcement, We need some form of justice, we need some form of protection. And this is something that almost goes beyond law enforcement as we know it
in the world today. So so what is an argument for a better world that that doesn't subscribe to the notions of how people think law enforcement these exists. Now, let's just start with some of the very basic facts that we know. If we care about safety, we care about harm. The number one thing we need to do is address the actual root causes of violence and harm in our society. The actual root causes of harm in
our society are not the fact that we're not policed enough. Right, we have the most police of any society, with most prisons, prosecutions, courts, judges, probation, parole, if probation parole, prosecutors, judges, and courts. If money spent on that made us safe, we would have the safest society in the history of the world. We don't. What actually matters, What actually matters for our safety is investing in things like reducing poverty, like safe permanent supportive houses,
like healthcare, public health. I completely, I completely agree with you on that. You know, I'm a firm believer in that. I think it's the you know, the cause versus the symptom. There is a confusing element that that I think often gets overlooked, and it's the transition. You know. I see it when people talk about electric cause, I see it when people talk about policing, and and it's the unfortunate truth that there is always going to be a transition
from one system to another. Unless there is a revolution that happens overnight, there needs to be a transition. What do you propose for the transition in between? Because we do have police now, there are unions that are very powerful that even the police say, hey, we we can't say anything. The union is controlling how this is doled out. So what do you do for the interim? Because I think we can you and I will agree on all
of that. You know, those are long term solutions, but in the in the in the short term, what do you think we can do to keep people safe and also find a way to move the system over. The good thing is that we know exactly what works, and we have a lot of evidence. So anyone who tells you that the solution, even in the shorter media in term, is more funding for police, that's like climate science denial.
There's overwhelming research that the programs that already exist UM permanent supportive housing, safe consumption sites, violence interruption, restorative justice, UM investing in safe places for communities to gather, are at school, music theater programs, early child education. All of these things work, and they work quickly. The problem is
we don't have the political powers. Often what happens is we identify, like in our work, these enormous injustices, like there are five hundred thousand human beings in cages right now in this country because they can't afford to pay cash to get out right, we identify that injustice, and what happens a lot of prominent establishment liberals. They propose a reform, but the reforms that are being proposed are backed by those same interests that created the current problem.
And so we're constantly being hit with short and medium term solutions that are reforms that actually exacerbate the problem. Let me give you an example. Take the bail system. If you care about the presumption of innocence, about people being taken away from their children because they can't make a monetary payment, like millions of children somebody from their parents every single year. Um, you want to fix this problem,
So enter the establishment democrats. What do they do? In most of these cities, They're trying to replace the cash bail system with privatized for profit electronic monitoring electronic incarceration. This is in norm to say profit. There are billions of dollars to be made with private corporations who want to convert our system of mass incarceration to a system of mass electronic attention. I as I say, I've I've always admired the fact that you you almost have a
start at home approach. You know you're onn't spending your time fighting with conservatives or Republicans who believe in that system. You're challenging liberals, you're challenging progressive you're challenging democrats who claimed this to actually follow through on it. So my question to you would then be for for for the media specifically, who you have a you know, a targeted focus on, you know, for the newspapers, for the publications, what do you think is a change that they could
make overnight, because that's completely in house. What is something they could do right now that could present a care of vision of where America should be? I think there are a few things. Number One, as they write my newsletter recently, cover the things that are most threatening to our health and safety. Cover the hundred thousands, Cover the one hundred thousand violations to the Clean Water Act every year that are killed ling children, that are killing families.
Did you know that there are one hundred thousand deaths in the US alone and ten million across the globe because of air pollution. That is five times a number of homicides in the U. S alone. Did you know how many people tens of thousands die from eviction and and predatory lending practices that put people into poverty. Um these are solvable problems. We know how to solve them. But the people in this country don't treat them urgently. And the reason is because the volume of news stories
they share volume every single day. It's about shop lift things about this isolated crime. It's about that isolated crime, and we're not talking about the threats to our existence like the rise of fascism or, for example, UM, the growing right wing threat in this country to reproductive health. Did you did you realize that, um? When you know I've been looking and studying very carefully how the media is covering Joe Biden's current request for a hundred thousand
new cops. When I see liberal Democrats all over the country, both in newsrooms and in polity picks, UM talking about that this isn't a big deal and we need to pass a hundred cops just to have a little bit of talking points and success for the mid terms. Understand this. Voters who care about that and want a right wing fascist force UM taking over our society are going to
vote for the Republicans anyway. People who care about building and investing in communities are looking for leadership on on things that we actually know work, like better schools, early childhood education programs in communities run by the people who are most impacted by these problems. I will say this story before I let you go, and I know I know what. I don't let you go. I will say this, so this is where I will disagree with you slightly.
Time and time again, you'll find when you actually look at voting blocks, people do not have access to that information and so they do not vote accordingly. People will say, you know what, I just want crime in my neighborhood to go down. I feel like the Democrats are not serious about crime. I feel like, you know, we need
better cops or more cops. I feel like because they maybe don't have the information or they haven't been given any possible solution that isn't policing, and so I think there's a difficult disconnect that may go back to if they read about it, if they see it, they would think about it as a possibility. So Alex, thank you so much for joining me on the show. Thank you said I thank you for your time, and hopefully we'll
chat again. A foot usual full seas of anything now and you can sign up for can Top a Down and use it up for free on top. The Daily Show with Terminal Ears edition. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central and the Comedy Central watchful episodes and videos at the Daily Show dot com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and subscribe to The Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and more. This has been a Comedy Central podcast