English subtitles for clip: File:A-Conversation-with-President-Obama-and-The-Wire-Creator-David-Simon.webm

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The President: At the
front end, I've got to

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tell you, I'm a huge
fan of "The Wire."

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I think it's one of
the greatest not just

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television shows, but
pieces of art in the

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last couples
of decades.

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I was a huge
fan of it.

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What is it that you saw,
you learned, you heard

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that made you start
thinking about the culture

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of the drug trade, and how
-- its impact on the inner

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cities and -- that
compelled you then

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to want to tell
these stories?

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David Simon: Well, I
was in Baltimore, and

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it's a very -- it's a
drug-saturated city, or it

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certainly was in the early
1980s when I arrived.

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And this was a time where
people thought they could

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arrest their way out
of a drug problem.

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The President:
Right.

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David Simon: And they
actually tried to do that.

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And what became
increasingly obvious to me

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over the years of covering
it was that when you

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devote yourselves to
street-level drug

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enforcement, when you try
to win the drug war, you

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only have a limited number
of resources, a limited

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amount of resources.

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The President: Right.

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David Simon: And I watched
the police department in

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Baltimore, and then I
noticed it in other

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cities, other cities with
the same sort of problems

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of drug use.

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They stopped
doing police work.

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The President: Right.

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David Simon: They were
arresting people for

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drugs, and that was
presumptive police work,

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but actually
it wasn't.

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And at the same time
that the numbers

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of drug arrests and the
incarcerations for drug

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arrests went up, and they
were small incarcerations.

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They were two, three
months city jail because

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you couldn't put
them everywhere.

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The President:
Right.

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David Simon: You couldn't
build prisons fast enough.

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The President:
Right.

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David Simon: Meanwhile,
the arrest rates for rape,

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robbery, murder
were going down.

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And the one thing that
makes cities safer is

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competent retroactive
investigation of felonies.

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That actually can
make a city safer.

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The President:
Right.

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David Simon: But to do
that, you have to use and

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not abuse informants;
you have to know how to

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testify in court; you have
to write a search warrant

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that is -- that's
going to hold up.

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The President: You know,
the good news is, is that

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some of the smarter police
departments started

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to figure this out.

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David Simon:
Right.

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That's true.

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The President: And we've
seen reductions in violent

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crime in most big cities
in America, in some cases

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precipitously, partly
because, I think, there

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was an awareness that
we were so invested in

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street-level drug
transactions that we were

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losing focus on what
was really important --

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David Simon: Right.

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The President: -- which was
people wanted to be safe.

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On the other hand, what we
know is that a consequence

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of that was this
massive trend towards

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incarceration, even of
non-violent drug offenders.

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And I saw this during
the period that you were

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reporting and then, you
know, starting to write

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for television.

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I saw this from the
perspective of the state

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legislator, this
just explosion of

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incarcerations,
disproportionately

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African-American
and Latino.

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David Simon: Yep.

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The President: And the
challenge, which you know,

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you depict in your show
is folks go in at great

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expense to the state, many
times trained to become

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more hardened criminals
while in prison, come out

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and are basically
unemployable.

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David Simon: Right.

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The President: And end
up looping back in.

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David Simon: Permanently a
part of the other America.

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The President:
Exactly.

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David Simon: And you
can't be pulled back.

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Nobody incarcerates their
population at this level.

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The President:
Right.

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David Simon: And to look
at it, when I came in as

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a police reporter, the
federal prison population

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was about 34 percent
violent offenders.

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The President: Yeah.

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David Simon: When I left
as a police reporter

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13 years later, it
was about 7 percent.

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The President: Right.

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David Simon: So these
were less violent people

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getting longer sentences.

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Of course, there was the
elimination of parole

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and good time.

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And you know, all you
had was good time.

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And so people
were staying in.

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The President:
Right.

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David Simon: And you're
absolutely right.

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They come back out
completely tarred.

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They can't vote.

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They can't participate
in their community.

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They've lost
track of families.

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Families have
been destroyed.

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Communities have
been upended.

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And if it was this
Draconian, and it worked,

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then maybe we can have
a discussion that said,

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"What we're doing
was working."

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The President: The
trade-offs were worth it.

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David Simon: Yeah.

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It's terrible, and we're
losing a lot of humanity,

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but hey, it's working.

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The President:
Yeah.

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David Simon: But
it doesn't work.

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The President:
Right.

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David Simon: It's Draconian,
and it doesn't work.

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The President: I've been
looking at -- because

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as part of the fall-out of
what you described, as the

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economy is recovering,
unemployment's coming down

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drastically.

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But one of the puzzles we
have is we still have low

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participation rates --

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David Simon:
Right.

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The President: --
among the population

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and the aggregate.

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But when you break down
why people are not

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getting back in the labor
force even as jobs are being

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created, a big chunk
of that is the young

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male population.

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David Simon: With
a felony history.

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The President: With
felony histories.

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David Simon: Yeah.

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The President: And so
now, where we have the

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opportunity to give
them a pathway towards

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a responsible life,
they're foreclosed.

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And that's
counterproductive.

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David Simon: The guy who
was the model for the

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character Omar --

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The President: Yeah.

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David Simon: -- in "The
Wire," was a real guy

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named Donnie Andrews.

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I never thought I'd be
saying his name in the

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White House, but he's a
guy who lived the life on

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the street.

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He spent years
robbing drug dealers.

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He lived -- he
lived hard.

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The President: Yeah.

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David Simon: And he
eventually caught a

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17-year bit, and
he deserved it.

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But he went in, he wasn't
caught; he actually went

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in on conscious because
it finally got to him.

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The President: Yeah.

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David Simon: And he did
everything that the

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prosecutors wanted him
to do, and he came --

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he came out 17
years later.

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And all he wanted to
do was give back

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to West Baltimore.

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The President:
Yeah.

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David Simon: He had taken
so much, and he'd been

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in for 17 years.

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He just wanted to address
himself to the disaster.

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The President: Yeah.

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David Simon: And on paper,
that man who was an

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extraordinary man; he
was one of the most

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amazing people I
met in my life.

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On paper, he was a
convicted felon and

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a convicted murderer, and
there was no -- there was

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nothing that could get
him from that extremity.

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The President: Right.

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David Simon: You know,
multiply that by hundreds

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of thousands of lives that
have been disconnected and

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have no way to
channel back into --

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The President: Well, and
part of what -- Omar's,

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by the way, my favorite
character on my favorite show.

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David Simon: That was the
part -- I was worried

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about that when
you said it, but --

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The President: (laughs)
But you know, part of what

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your show depicted was
also that there's a

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generational element
to this, right?

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So you've got entire
generations of men being

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locked up, which means
entire generations of boys

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growing up either without
a father, or if they see

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their dad, they're
seeing them in prison.

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David Simon: Right.

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I mean, this is not
happening in a vacuum.

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These are the places
in America where the

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industrialization has
had the most affect.

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The President: Right.

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David Simon: And where the
unemployment rates --

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the actual unemployment rates
among young black males

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in my city are -- bear no
resemblance to the actual

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unemployment
rate nationally.

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The President: Right.

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David Simon: And so that's
something that has to be

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countered, which is that
the drug trade itself,

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it's like a company town.

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And this is an industry so
large and, so -- with so

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much money around it that
it's hard to -- it's hard

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to get around it if
you grow up amid it --

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The President:
Yeah.

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David Simon: -- and
certainly without role

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models that know how
to maneuver around it.

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And to undo that, taking
the overlay that is the

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drug war and at least
ratcheting it down and

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making it proportional
in some way is essential

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because right now, you
know, what drugs don't

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destroy, the war against
them is ripping apart.

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The President:
Yeah.

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Well, here's
the good news.

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There is an increasing
realization on the left,

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but also on the right
politically that what

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we're doing is
counterproductive either

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from a Libertarian
perspective -- the way

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we treat non-violent drug
crimes is problematic --

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and from a fiscal
perspective, it's

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breaking the bank.

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David Simon: Right.

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The President: You end up
spending so much more

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on prison than you would with
these kids being in school

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or even going to
college that it's

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counter-productive, and it
means everybody's taxes

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are going up, or at
least services that

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everybody uses are
being squeezed.

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Or we can't hire cops to
deal with violent crime

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as you talked about.

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We're all -- we're
all responsible for

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at least finding a
solution to this.

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And the encouraging thing
is, I think awareness

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is increasing in part because
violent crime has gone

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down in a lot
of big cities.

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People are more open
to having a discussion

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about this.

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David Simon: Yeah.

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They're not as
frightened.

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The President: And, you
know, I think we have

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to seize that
opportunity.

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But part of the challenge
is going to be making

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sure, number one, that
that we humanize what

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so often on the
local news is --

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David Simon: Right.

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The President: -- just a
bunch of shadowy characters.

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And tell their stories,
and that's where the work

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you've done has
been so important.

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And then the second
thing is enlisting

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law enforcement as
an ally on this.

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Now, Eric Holder, my
attorney general,

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we started talking about
this several years ago

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when I first came
into office.

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And one of the things
that we tried to do was

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to change how we
talk to U.S. attorneys

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and their offices
about what is a measure

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of effective
prosecution.

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And when we came into
office, I think what was

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probably true in a lot of
States Attorney's Offices,

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the measure was, how
much time do you get?

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David Simon:
Charge the maximum.

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The President:
Charge the max.

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David Simon: Yeah.

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The President: And you
know, our point was

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effectiveness as a
prosecutor involves

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thinking about justice and
being proportional in how

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you think about
these issues.

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David Simon: Right.

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The President: And that's
something we can do

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administratively, but
ultimately we're going to

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need legislation.

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And that's where raising
awareness is going to be

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important.

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David Simon: Exactly.

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The President: And
law enforcement and

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prosecutors have to be
able to talk about this.

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And we have to, you know,
let them know -- and you

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show this in "The Wire" as
well -- in the same way

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you've got to be able to
humanize those involved in

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the drug trade, we have to
remind ourselves about the

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police; they've got a scary,
tough, difficult job.

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And if the rest of society
is saying, "Just go deal

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with this, and we don't
want to hear about it" --

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David Simon: Right.

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The President: -- and
you're just on the

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frontlines, and, "Just
keep it out of our

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sight lines.

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And you know, it's not
our problem," you know,

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we're betraying
them as well.

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And ultimately you're
going to have to address

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some of the
environmental issues.

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And I know that's not
fashionable because the

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notion is, you know,
you don't want to make

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excuses for criminals.

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What we understand and
what, you know, perhaps

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one of the most moving
sections of "The Wire"

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was that whole depiction of
the schools in Baltimore

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in public schools, is that
if kids are left so far

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behind that they don't
have recourse, you know,

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they're going to see
what else is available

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to survive.

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David Simon: They're
going to learn one way

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or the other.

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The President: They're
going to learn something.

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David Simon: Yeah.

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The President: And the --
and so we're going to have

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to think about schools,
and counselors, and mental

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health, and
ultimately jobs, and

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reindustrialization,
and I think we

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understand all of that.

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But if we can start down
this path to a more

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productive way of thinking
about drugs and its

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intersection with law
enforcement, 20 years

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from now, we can say to
ourselves, "Well, maybe

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we got a little smarter.

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And you know, we didn't
get here overnight."

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We're not going to get
out of it overnight.

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But the fact that we've
got people talking about

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it in a smarter way gets
me a little encouraged.

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David Simon: From your
mouth to God's ear.

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The President:
Yeah.

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I enjoyed it.

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David Simon: Thank
you very much.

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The President:
Thank you.