Portion below; whole thing here: http://www.edgeofsports.com/2008-11-05-384/index.html
DZ: You started Amer-I-Can [Brown's program working with gang members] back in the eighties, and in the nineties we saw an explosion in the prison population that hit the African-American community very hard in terms of nonviolent drug offenses. We're warehousing a whole generation of people in prisons across the country. Is that something you would like to see reformed?
JB: Well, that's a very profitable business, warehousing. A lot of our prison guards make well over a hundred thousand dollars. We didn't know that, did we? If we stop crime and stop incarceration a lot of businesses would go out of business. So we have to be careful with what we think is going on. I'll give an example: in California, the departments of corrections and education came up with a concept of re-entry to help inmates re-enter society, get a job, get an education and become less violent. The prison guards' union told [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger no, we don't want that, and if you deal with it you're not going to get reelected. Well, they're one of the most powerful unions in the country, and the re-entry program was shelved.
DZ: You stood up for Stan "Tookie" Williams [founder of the Crips gang] in the run-up to his execution. You took a lot of flak for that. Why did you do it?
JB: Because the only way you're going to get rid of the problem is when people on the inside, like Tookie, take the stance that he took. I don't know if he committed murder or if he didn't, but he said he didn't. He wanted to do something for other kids and also tell them about the problems, about the terrible aspects of gang life. He reached out and he affected a lot of young people because of having changed from a notorious person into a human being that would have compassion for his fellow citizens. I felt that knowing all the gang members that I know that have changed their lives and how effective they are with helping out kids in their own community, that this man being alive would mean so much, would save so many lives and would have such an impact on our society.
DZ: Do you oppose the death penalty?
JB: Absolutely. I do not understand how you convict a person for murder and then twenty years later you kill them. To me that's just a murder on another level, man. That satisfies nobody. Twenty years? You've got an old man and you take him to the electric chair. It's sort of barbaric, really because the power of being civilized and being so-called human beings is forgiveness, understanding, learning how to submit. It is the opposite of revenge. These examples don't work because they basically don't deter anyone from doing anything bad.
The rules do change. For example, Amer-I-Can has been able to stop riots in jails, we have been able to create peaceful communities, we have brought grade point averages up. The mayor of Los Angeles just came out with six organizations that he is going to finance this year. We did not get a mention.
DZ: How do you explain that?
JB: It's very hard to explain, but that's politics, right?
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