Greetings everyone. My name is Nicole Simmons-Roshan. I am the programs director for programs and resources from the division of DEI here at UCCS. It is a pleasure to see and be with all of you and also to our persons who are virtual as well. We would like to get started and we'll do so first and foremost by starting with what we would call our rules of discourse. Just making sure that we're all in the same playing field. We're all understanding my purpose, our purpose of why we are here. Today we are addressing can we fix crime? Can you fix crime? And with that, we want to make sure that in our statements, in our communications with each other, we aim to use I statements, share only your personal experience, unless you've gotten permission from someone else that is okay with that. Remember that ideas and opinions can be fluid.  Rather, you agree or disagree. That's important to remember. Assume best intentions. Embrace accountability of your impact. So, it is possible that a statement, you may say a statement that could possibly offend someone else that may not be your intent, but it was the impact. So, we're keeping those things in mind as we converse with each other. Seeking to understand and respect diverse opinions. Again, we all have come from different walks of life. And I think that share, that ability for us to share, it enables us to learn from each other. Not so much compare, but learn. And then also, share the time so that we all can learn from each other. So, it is okay. There's a lot to be stated. We can definitely take turns in sharing our opinions. But we definitely want to make sure that everyone feels as if their voice will be heard while we are here. Challenge by choice. That's more of a self-care statement. It means that we may have an opinion on something. I may have an opinion on something. But if that topic kind of makes me feel a little, maybe I know I'm emotional, so I might cry. I might choose not to speak because I just don't want to be that vulnerable in this setting. Or I may also battle with some other emotions like anger or frustration. I want to make sure that I'm able to channel it the correct way. So maybe I'll take a step back and allow for other people to share instead of being the first to the mind. Something to think about. And then lastly, not actually lastly, but hate speech and discriminatory language and actions are not permitted. So we want to make sure that that is stated and that we are all understanding of it and we are ready to move forward. I would like to broadly make a comment towards our topics that we speak today, speak about today, maybe triggering please, if you do need to step out, please do so. We will be talking about subjects that may seem directly or indirectly connected to maybe some public awareness that we all are aware of. It is okay to question things in a general statement, but if indeed we get on subjects where we may want to know specifics about criminal activities, or things that we may be aware of due to activities of an unfortunate circumstances that have happened recently at UCCS, we want to make sure that everyone is aware that if there is any specifics we cannot address certain things. So do not be offended if by chance anyone from our panel may have to pass on a specific question and that's okay. Again, we are only wanting to make sure that we provide this great platform that we can have this open conversation. And then lastly, my role. My role is just to guide the conversation. I'm just here to talk and to enable all of us to have a place, have a platform if we do need it. It is not to take sides. It is also not to impose my opinion on anything as well. It is just to facilitate the conversation, ensure that all of you have the opportunity to speak and express your perspectives without interruption. To get us started, I'd like to do a few thank yous. We definitely want to send out great thank yous to our SGA. We want to send out thank yous to our LAS. The division of DEI, Cramer Family Library and the Center of Religious Diversity and Public Life. We thank you all for allowing us to have this great conversation and a great platform to do it. So we will get started with introductions. We would like to have a brief introduction of you, however you want to introduce yourself. We encourage it and we'll start with Dr. Papios. Hi. My name is Dr. Eduardo Porteos. You can call me Eddie. I've been here at UCCS for a number of years, probably since 2005, I believe. I'm getting old so I don't recall the exact timing. But I am an associate professor and I am the chair of the sociology department. My research here at UCCS has looked at youth gangs, school, criminalization, crime in the Latinx community. And a whole variety of issues around those kinds of things. Also community police relations. I teach here at UCCS youth gangs, juvenile delinquency, criminology, social corrections at the graduate level, and the quality crime and justice. So that's just a brief introduction. Can you guys hear me? Is it okay? Great. Awesome. So my name is Dwayne McAlver. I'm the chief of police here at UCCS. I came here after a 28-year career with the Huntsville Police Department in Alabama. As I came up through the ranks over that 28 years, I did pretty much almost everything I think within a police department to be able to do. And throughout that 28 years, my perspective as a police officer changed immensely. Which is why when I retired, I thought this would be a fantastic place to come and be a part of. Not only as a chief of police, but as a part of the community for things exactly like this. I think these conversations are so important. I think it's fantastic for us all to be able to share perspectives and talk about experiences. Because that's how we grow. That's how we all grow together. That's how we become better. So thank you for being here. Thank you for taking part in this. And I look forward to this discussion. My name is Ryan Forbes. And in 2014, I caused a crash that cost a young man his life. From that, I got a 10-year prison sentence in Texas and 10 years probation as well. I spent six years in Texas prisons. And during that time, I got a degree in sociology. I studied victim advocacy and criminology as well. And now I just got done making a restorative justice graphic novel as part of my community service. And also, I do a podcast where we talk about the criminal justice system and people's personal experiences with it. Thank you. My name is Ayanna Quinones. I am doing my undergraduate degree in sociology. I have a variety of experiences. And I believe that there's so much power in the subjective and in the experiences. There's so much that can be taken from that, the particular points to the big picture, which is something I'm so excited for. One of my passions, I'm currently doing a research project about community corrections and restorative justice. And as I get further into that, I'm just learning so much. And there is so many phenomenal and interesting and innovative things going on right now that I think are wonderful to talk about. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you all very much. Those are excellent, excellent introductions. I think we can start off. I am a forever learner. So I like to start off with a more descriptive, let's build some a word box. And I think our main word or our text box for today is restorative justice. So with that context, restorative justice is somewhat defined as seeking to examine a crime or some harm, the impact of a crime. And then being able to repair the harm that the crime may have caused by also holding either a person, a system responsible for that particular crime. When you all hear that word, what do you all think of? What comes to mind? And that can be good anyway. Go ahead. Well, restorative justice, I think I've heard several different over my career and especially over the last several years, different ways of thinking about it. One of those would be restoring justice in a bigger picture to a more broad group of any people in our community to try to write long term issues that have kind of led us to where we are in the individual today. And then the other way that we think about it is more like the description that you gave, which is how do we in a more holistic way, you know, have justice that is actually something that makes the world better and repairs things and brings some normalcy back to the situation that was damaged by some act. And so I think that's a, you know, both of those two ways of thinking about restorative justice, I think are very valid things that need to be discussed. And, you know, we'll see where this discussion sort of goes. Yeah, when I hear restorative justice, my thinking always goes to healing because from my understanding, from my dealings with it, from my working with people with a lot of restorative justice experience, that always seems to be the goal is it's about healing and it's also about it's about that community aspect of it. And it's about reaching out to the community and feel and seeing who's hurt and seeing how can we help and figure out what what's going on with it, which is a different It's different than the way people traditionally look at whenever there's a deviant behavior or our crime is committed because people don't tend to think of how can we help it's more of who can we blame who caused this. It's we're restorative justice. I really like the idea that it goes. All right, who's been hurt and how can we help them. When I think of restorative justice, you know, I'm not an expert in that area, I don't know the different theories, different approaches around restorative justice. But I certainly advocate for that approach. And many of the classes that I teach, criminology, youth gangs, that's certainly a perspective that I think that we need to integrate more rather than longer punitive such sentences. I think more restorative justice approaches could be could be useful. So when I think of restorative justice, I think of some of the academics that that I read that I assigned to my students to read. People like Robert Durand, Victor Rios, Christopher Bolden, Catherine Maldonado, all of them were former gang members, all of them sold drugs, carried weapons, all those kinds of things. So when we think about gangs, they fit that image, right? They were they were the people that we should be fearful of that were told to be scared of those kinds of things. But they turned their lives around. There was one person that took an interest in them that mattered to them and said, hey, you know what, I'm here for you. Yes, you're messing up, but I'm here for you. And when they were ready, they took advantage of that opportunity, right?  He has a PBS little segment 510 minutes that you can find on YouTube. He has a documentary has several books and articles, very well known sociologist. It could have been easy to lock him up at 1516 for the rest of his life. But somebody took an interest in it. Somebody made a difference in his life. I think those are the kinds of things that we need to remember when we talk about social restorative justice, right? That we people can make amends people can change their lives. But we need to recognize also that there are other kinds of issues and we'll talk about that a little bit later that impact their lives that we need to be aware of. Piki backing off of that, talking about the context of it. The one thing I never liked about punitive justice is that it looked basically only at the moment the instant that something happened and it feels to recognize the context in which it happened in, what led up to that, what's happening after that, what's happening to the people around that person. There's so many things that go into this, right? And another thing, because y'all wonderfully already talked about what I wanted to, what I was thinking about when you say restorative justice, ding! One thing I think about restorative justice and a question I asked myself is when we're restoring something, what are we restoring back to? Because a lot of people are just like, is that person now out of the correction system? They've been restored, right? But something wasn't working with normal, with their normal. Something was amiss with what was. So I think making sure that when we're talking about restorative justice, we're restoring to something better than what was and not just plopping people back into what wasn't working before is so important. Because people's ideas of what restorative is vary so much. Some people are just like, congrats, you didn't come back here. Some people are like, you have a degree. Some people are like, you have a job. It varies so much. But it's just, for me, it's making sure that when we restore something, it's not just going back to normal and continuing what was not working before. Excellent. I would like to shift a little bit in reference to, I'll give this to Ryan for now. Ryan, you mentioned earlier of being or having the opportunity to complete your degree. And in my opinion, that means that you are a product of restorative justice. And in that retrospect, what do you think is working well within our justice system? Well, the degree, to clarify the degree, I actually had to go out and get myself from within the system. So I was in prison and I kind of, I had, I knew I was going in, I was a software developer before I got locked up. And I knew I wasn't going to be able to do that. I knew there was, you know, what I was doing before getting locked up was I was going to have to, I was working very hard to keep up with the latest trends, latest technology, because everything changes minute by minute with software and that wasn't going to happen in prison. So I knew I was going to have to do something else. And I wanted to take what I had done and turn it into something that actually helps other people. But I didn't know what that was going to be at the time. And it's, so I actually, because my family really like was, was willing to look out for me, they were able to help me find a college which turned out to be Adam State University, because they have one of the best degree by mail programs. They, and one of the few where you can actually complete a program through the actual physical mail, as opposed to online, which is very rare and hard to find. Now, I was able to actually get that degree and do all the work on victim advocacy and study criminology through the mail, which was, I'm very grateful for. And it was, so I didn't actually get to go in Texas for manslaughter. There's no, there's no restorative justice process that was not, not part of it. But I do strongly believe in it because it is, I feel like I, at the time of the crash, there was nothing I would have done to try and help the people I had hurt. But that with my, with the lawyers, like the attorneys, everyone said, you are, do not talk to those victims, it's going to hurt you in court. So I was, they're like, basically say, don't talk to them, don't talk to them, don't talk to them. But I wanted to say sorry, I wanted to reach out, I wanted to find out what I can do. And I'm also trying not to spend the rest of my life in prison at the same time. So it was like a weird, weird battle. But on that note, the thing I thought a lot about this question about what, what is the system doing really well. And the system really provides a lot of comfort to, to people. The way it's set up, the way, the way it's set up right now is a huge comfort to a lot of people.  And if you follow the rules, you can go and find, you can, there's good guys you can rely on and they can offer help to you. That is truly, that is very satisfying inside of each one of us. And it is something I truly relied on myself for a very long time. And it's comforting and it's nice to not have to think in depth really what do you have to do when something goes wrong. But I have come to learn that no matter what the situation, whether it's something small, something big, it's always more complicated because people are involved. But I will say it is the way it is set up, that is the biggest advantage it has right now. It is an amazing comfort to many people. Thank you, Ron. What else? Yeah. So it is, we thought about this a lot. It's a tough one really because you can quickly think of things that aren't working real well. But when you start to think about what is, it's a little bit tougher, to be honest. And so as I thought about it, I was like, you know, to me the biggest positive thing right now is the fact that we're having these conversations a lot more in general, especially in the law enforcement community. I would say, let me say this, I think it's really important for this conversation to say that it's important for everybody to recognize that every single police department is different. They're all different with their cultures, with the way, you know, things happen inside their agencies. Every single judicial system is different. Every DA's office behaves differently. Every corrections system throughout the country is a little different. So I may say something from my point of view, and you may from your point of view say, well, that's not what I've seen, right? And that's fair because you may have an experience with something totally different than mine. But in general, from my perspective, what I have seen is, you know, since around 2013, 2014, probably when the Ferguson event happened, that was really when I began to see a real shift. It was very small at first, very subtle, but a shift toward more accountability in general, right? And people looking around at each other and saying, no, that's not right. You know, that's not right. And I began to see that throughout law enforcement where people were wanting to hold those officers or whoever who were too heavy handed or talked to people like they shouldn't. You know, they began to be held accountable at a much greater level. Still got a long way to go. There are still lots of improvements to be made. But I'll just say that from my perspective, seeing that shift, seeing the movement toward empathy, toward saying everyone doesn't need to go to jail in general and begin. Some police departments may not be behaving that way. But ours and the one that I came from before, there was a strong shift toward looking at what's the best thing in this situation, right? If we don't have to put a person in jail, let's not put them in jail. Let's let that be the last resort instead of the first resort. And so that conversation is something positive. But it needs to be a much broader conversation and throughout the whole criminal justice system, not just the front line. So that's my take. I can respond as well. So some of what I do is some expert witness work. I have worked death penalty cases in Arizona. I've worked cases here in Colorado where youth have committed homicides and I'm hired to come in and argue for mitigation factors. And so sometimes I get to see, I interview kids, juveniles who are in the juvenile detention centers. I interview adults who are in the prisons. And most times they don't often speak while in prison. And what that incarceration experience is like. Sometimes the youth will mention that there may be a detention worker that they're working with that they've been able to establish a mentoring relationship with. And so they do appreciate that aspect of it. But many of the adults in the adult prison system don't feel like they're being rehabilitated.  But they find it's very hard to do that. Maybe they're provided with some skills, but once they get back into the community, it's very difficult for them to adjust. They haven't been taught how to adjust in their communities. So they come from communities where there's drugs, where there's gangs, where there's violence. And they go right back to those communities. And because of the prison record, it's been made it very hard for them to get a job. And they want to. They want a job. And it's been very difficult for them. And so they struggle and then eventually they revert back to what they know. Selling drugs, the gang life, those kinds of things. So I know what the juvenile justice and the adult justice system is meant for. But when I bring my kind of critical lens to this, because I am a critical criminologist. And so I look at this also from kind of a structural perspective. What purpose does our prison serves, right? If we look at it from Durkheim, Durkheim will argue that crime serves a functional purpose. He talks more about social solidarity. We can talk about other kinds of purposes. We can draw from a book that's written by Ryman and Leighton. That's called The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison. And basically what they argue in that book is that the criminal justice system hasn't been created to stop crime or to serve justice. It's been created to incarcerate the poor. And then when we think about the poor, we think about the intersections with race and other kinds of things, right? And so that's the general idea that, you know, we've created a system not to address crime. And part of their arguments is, let's look at how crime operates, right? Let's look at the criminal justice policies that we've created. And they spend some time comparing white-collar crimes versus the other kinds of crimes that are more highlighted in the media, right? That those crimes are committed maybe just as frequently, you know, the homicides, the in-person injuries, those kinds of things, right? People are being killed for both, but the way in which the policies are created for white-collar crimes, the punishments are less severe. You're not going to serve as amount of time on and on in terms of those differences.  And who can benefit from that money. And that's certainly an argument that we see about the criminal justice system, that there are inequalities that we see in our society. Until we fully address those inequalities, we can't reduce crime. So who's benefiting? And, you know, I would argue that more as a society, we tend to benefit from the jobs that are created. Even me as a criminologist, I got a job because of crime and because of the crime that goes on, right? Criminology is one of those criminal justice programs that continue to grow even here at UCCS. There are financial benefits that go with crime, right? And that's certainly an aspect of crime that we really don't think about in terms of who's benefiting. You know, who's designing the private prisons and, you know, it's traded on Wall Street. There are financial benefits there. People who are working in the juvenile justice system and the prison system. There are financial benefits there, right? And so there are a whole variety of ways in which, you know, this prison system, this juvenile justice system, may not always be serving the needs of those who most need it. And if we really want to address those needs, we need to address these larger patterns of inequality. That's what it is. You were leading us where we are going. Oh, right. And Ayanna, I want us to dig a little deeper on this. In understanding what we just heard and then also hearing Chief McCarver say, every police department is different and we hear there is a system within a system and we are trying to navigate around all of those pieces. With that in mind, what are our systematic problems? Let's dig deep into what are those. We thought about all of the great things, the wonderful aspects that come along. But what are our systematic problems that we have in criminalization? I wish I could crack my knuckles like this, but I can't. So I feel like this is important to know because I am less professional, less academic. I'm mostly coming from experience, right? So my family is from Colorado Springs. I come from a military family. I have a lot of family in San Antonio and I have a lot of family in Puerto Rico. I have people who are the cops, the correctional officers, and then I think this is just crazy. I was getting dressed for this, y'all. And I was thinking about it, right? And I was like, wow, my dad is the only one in his siblings that did not go to prison. He's been to jail, but he's the only one who hasn't gone to prison, right? Why? His dad was literally a cop. He's like third generation, I think. This is, for some reason, it came up. You've been my mom's side of the family. Most people have seen the inside of a jail cell. I think it was everybody, except for my mom. I don't know why those two were the only exceptions, but it's probably because they went the other way. They were like, I'm going to just read a book instead. But I think the one thing that I think of first is just dysfunction, even in my own life. I will say it straight up. I grew up a lot differently than they did. I have a lot of privilege. I grew up in a stable household, but even for myself, I have these generational attitudes towards police that would probably not fare well if I were to be pulled over. I already get antsy thinking about it. I just think about stories. I think of my own experiences with police. I know that I'm going to act weird. They're probably going to think I'm acting weird. It's just going to turn into a cycle, right? And the amount of things that go into these systematic failures, it's wide reaching. For the most part, I think that race is the most front-facing one, right? Because you can look at somebody, and I feel like race is the most immediate thing that you look at somebody, and that's the first category you put them in, right? So race definitely affects everything in your class, right? I think the one case that I think of in my own family is the case of my great-uncle. He got jumped at a park. This is the family story. He got jumped at a park. He was like, yo, my dignity's been stolen. They took his chain, and then he did something terrible. He committed arson. He set up an apartment block on fire, right? So that's what he did.  He displaced like 60 people, and he did end up killing people. That's horrible, right? But then I go to my grandmother, who is his sister, right? And she's like, he deserved a second chance. He was 16 when he did this. He was 16 years old. What he did was not right, but then I remember that he was a poor Latino man who just came to the country literally two weeks before, didn't speak English. He was just mad. He had no coping skills that he was given, because for the most part on the island, if somebody, you know, this is you, he does them right back, and it's probably not good. That was just the culture, and it was brought over here, and it killed people, right? And then on top of that, his case, usually cases take forever. His was done in like six months. He was gone in jail, put into jail. He got out on parole in like 2013. He went back to jail. He went back to prison because he didn't understand what they said during parole. So he thought that he could go back to Puerto Rico, but then didn't report it so that he ended up back there, and he is still there to this day, right? So just looking out, not excusing what he did, because there is individual responsibility with this. He did do that. All the societal factors that went into that, those are still real, though. Class, age, ethnicity, race, ability, all of these things and more play into it. But then at the same time, I'm just like, there probably could, his story probably could have been a lot different. It could have been a lot different. I'm not saying what he did was right, but I am saying that it could have been different for him because it also influenced the attitudes of everybody in my family for so long. It still does. Nobody so trusts the cops. Nobody thinks they're going to do them right. My grandmother is like, I don't want to talk to the cops. They always going to do your dirty, even if they did somebody did cite you and you were technically in the right, don't trust them. I'm going to, I'd love to jump on the back of that because we used to talk or I used to, when I would teach, I taught in the police academy. I was a director of training for five years and I would always talk to the new recruits and then the officers who had been in there for years and I would talk about a similar kind of thing. I would say, imagine, this is kind of a long story, but I think you'll like it. So I would say, as an officer, if you pulled over a car and let's just say that it was a kid on his way home from high school. He had his football gear in the back seat.  I was speeding. I apologize. You know, I can't believe I did that. You know, I'm the captain of the football team and I make straight A's and I was just trying to get to work because I'm running a little late and the officer, you know, I'm going to picture this, right?  He's doing all the right things, you know. But then all of a sudden they maybe smell a little odor of marijuana and he said, is that marijuana I smell? And then the kid says, you know, yes, I'm so sorry. You know, I've never done this before. It was the first time I've ever had it. I've got a joint that I was smoking and it's, you know, and they ask, Trey, I'm so sorry, please don't do anything. If you tell my parents, they'll kill me, right? I said, now think about this situation and what you would think as an officer, would this be a kid that you might cut a break to? And I'd say, now, let's pause. Let's go to another traffic stop. You're driving through the inner city, poor area, right? Stereoblare and boom, boom, boom.   You know what? You know, I'm just right through the neighborhood.  And you know what you're feeling as an officer. You're getting angry, right?   He didn't go to school that day. His parents, when he came home, he came home to a mom, if he was lucky, who was at home because she probably worked all the time, maybe didn't even know who his dad was. And the mom said things like, the cops are all assholes, right? They're all jerks. You can't trust any of them. And they're only out to hurt you, right? Realistically, right? Avoid them at all costs. And by the way, in some areas, in this family, smoking marijuana was a totally normal thing. And nobody thought it was wrong. And although it's legal here in Colorado, I would talk about this in Alabama, where it's still illegal. And so, you know, for this family, it was society that had imposed this random situation to be illegal that heavily affected the poor black community versus what it did to the more affluent white communities, right? I said, now, so, this kid that you've just pulled over, he thinks you're in the wrong. He, now, you smell marijuana and you say, is that marijuana in the car? And he says, yeah, I have marijuana in the car.  You're just holding me back, right? I said, now, these two situations, which of those two kids was truly more in the wrong? The one who had been taught that marijuana was absolutely wrong his whole life and you better avoid it or you'll be in trouble at home or the kid who was taught that it was totally fine and the cops were bad and the whole system was meant to keep him down or pull back, right? What's the worst thing a cop could do in that moment? Arrest the kid that already hates the police, right? That kid needs the break. That kid needs the, hey, I understand where you come from. I understand the situation. I care.  We're here to just try to help or take care of you. I was like, think about the impact that that interaction would have in that situation versus cutting the break to the other one.  The other kid thought he was in the right and thinks that you're the one holding them back, right? And so we don't change the world or we don't make things better by just doing the status quo, right?  Everything they've been taught and shown have been negative. I'd like for law enforcement to work extra hard, right? To reach out to those parts of our society because that's how we're going to get better. So that's a story we would talk about. And by the way, I always ask cops to picture you're driving your own vacation and you get pulled over. Telling you're not a nervous wreck.  It's like, don't forget that because every time you pull over a car, they're a nervous wreck. No matter what, even if they don't think they did anything wrong, it's scary. And cops sometimes have to remember that. You forget it. When you're always on that side of the badge or you're in the car with the lights on, you forget the impact that you're having on the people that you're interacting with. And so we're having those conversations and you're right, we all need to be more cognizant and especially the law enforcement community. So, yeah, one thing you mentioned, too, is that it's not just a front-line problem, which I totally agree with. And that's one, because one thing I learned about, and it was an example when I found when I was studying, is that if someone goes, they're driving, they go too fast on the icy road, they hit a car, they kill someone, that's a crime, that's felony.  But if someone designs a car and they ignore, willingly ignore all the safety inspections and all the safety guidelines for building the car and then everyone who buys that car, the brakes fail and then tons of people die, that is a misdemeanor. If it's a crime at all, depending on where the jurisdiction falls on that. And to me, that's one of the biggest issues is what is actually considered a crime. And that's also coming up with like, well, POT's legal here, but it's not legal here and it's not there, and then you get certain types of different messaging on this. So there's several, it's not one area of what the problem is. And then the added issue is that every part from like the front lines of policing to the people in the courtrooms who are deciding judgments to the jails and prisons when they're dealing with these issues, they're all looking at that same thing of this is about retribution. This is about getting, this person did X, so now we're doing Y back at them. And that, looking at things that way, where it keeps pushing it harder and harder and we end up with, like our system right now, which is we're making, we're putting more people into prisons when crime is going down, which doesn't make sense. We should, at this point, you would think that we should be letting up if that's the case. And so, and the reason that keeps going up like that is because you're still, when you look at the media, when you're looking at the other things that are, when you turn on anything, the message you keep hearing over and over again is about fear, you're afraid, and who is responsible for what, and who is doing this, who's doing that, who's up to this, what group is doing this to you right now and who might be doing what. And that attitude and that mindset gets people defensive, and I feel like it's causing this situation where we want to put people away, we want to other people, and we want to have, we need to have bad guys. We need to have a group of bad people. And I think it's really important, even when people do bad things, because everyone has, no one's lived a perfect life. So, everyone has done some wrong. It's figuring out how to minimize those wrongs for everybody and increase the amount of healing that we can have and prevent those things going forward. And I don't think we, our society has been looking at it that way. I can address part of this as well. Just hearing Ayanna's story and the family experiences kind of reminds me of the stories that I hear from the young people that I interview in Fresno, California, Arizona, and a variety of suburbs there and the inner cities there, here in Colorado Springs and Denver and Aurora, it's the same kind of story, right, where these kids are having these negative experiences. Their families are talking about these experiences as well and feeling like the police aren't there to help them. They feel like they can't trust the police and it's the same stories over and over. And in some ways, it fits with my own experiences growing up, right? I could probably spend another panel talking about all my experiences and my friends and family's experiences as well with the police. And so, you know, that more critical hat that I have looks at the police from a very kind of critical perspective of saying, okay, yeah, we know that before there was a criminal justice system, there was slavery, which was intended as another form of policing for particular groups. And then from there, we had other racialized forms of social control. And now, you know, it's evolved to what we have today to kind of help explain some of the racial disparities that we see in the criminal justice system and in the juvenile justice system. But recognizing that at the same time, you know, I have to also take into consideration similar to what Chief said earlier, is that, you know, there are differences within the police departments, right? And I've worked with a number of officers and CSPD and some of those officers have had the same kind of experiences that I had growing up. And that brings in a little bit more compassion as a result of having had those experiences with the communities that they police. And I recognize that, right? I recognize that in the past, there have been some issues here on the UCCS campus with the police and racially minoritized communities as well. I'm not hearing as much of it now, but certainly in the past, that was certainly the case. From the youth that I talk to, I don't hear as much about CSPD, the gang kids that I talk to. They say, you know what? We're having good experiences with the police. There are not any negative interactions that we can talk about. They're nice. They really try to generally help us out. And so I can recognize that maybe something here in Colorado Springs is a little bit different in other places where I've interviewed young kids in the smaller cities like Trinidad. Right now in Aurora, in Aurora, Colorado, a case that I just finished on Monday, I'm writing the report. And that context there is so different than some other places that I've seen. We know the well-publicized case of Elijah McCain. I'm a claim that was killed there in Aurora, Colorado. There's been a whole incident that were reported in the Aurora Centennial about trustworthiness of police, police being disloyal, overuse of power, a whole variety of issues that we see within that police department. And so when I go talk to those kids that I hear a different set of experiences around racial bias, because that's, again, some of what was depicted in the article, you see the differences there, right? And the kids' experiences and the family's experiences, the way that they're talking about law enforcement is certainly different. So I think that part of my critical hat that can understand the kind of more abolitionist approach, but there's also the kind of part where I know these officers, I've seen them interact, and I know they're well-meaning, right? They really want to truly help the communities, at least here that I've seen in Colorado Springs, and we don't always see that. So how do we get that kind of policing that we see in other communities and bring it to these others that we think of as high crime, really dangerous, so that we can have more compassionate policing in those communities as well? Thank you for gearing us to our next question. I'm doing that. Yes, you're doing amazing, as we have about 10 or so minutes before we move to open up our dialogue with the understanding of external factors, like socialization, like systems within a system, with our own personal experiences. Chief, I want us to talk about, quote-unquote, the change begins with us. Yeah, so, you know, I mentioned that one of the best things I've seen, one of the positives, is that we're having this conversation. And I think that it's so important that no matter, you know, everybody in this room, who knows, we're sitting down here and we have no idea, right, what's going through your mind as we talk, because you have your perspectives, as you talked about in the opening. Every one of us sees the world through your own eyes, which has all of your experiences behind it. And so, I think in order for us to really make progress in this area, in this world, we need more of this kind of dialogue where people are open to hearing something they disagree with and who are open to disagreeing and the other person being open to that conversation. And ultimately, everybody having the mindset that you want to grow, you want to learn. Because, you know, I don't know about you guys. I just had this thought. But some of my best friends in life were people that I really didn't get along with at first. Like, it was almost like we probably had some big argument at some point early in our childhood or something, but they ended up being some of my best friends. And it's because you learn to, like, dialogue, you learn to talk about deep things. And I think that's really important. And in order to do that in our society, what scares me that I see is everybody going into their corners. I think we all see that, right? Everybody wants to go into their corners and nobody wants to have the conversations and everybody wants to get offended immediately. I want to toss out a thought that the people who disagree, there are people out there right now that would think us having this conversation is crazy, right? There are those people out there. And they don't even want to hear a conversation like this. But we need those people to listen. And if everybody gets instantly defensive with somebody who doesn't want to agree or acknowledge their conversation, it pushes them further away, right? In other words, I want us to all think about always being compassionate and caring and open whenever we have conversations. Like, this has been great. I mean, you know, I'm hearing, we're always hearing interesting things, but I don't know. I think I just, I always want to talk about that. To remind yourself to be cordial and try not to push people away from you by getting mad at them because they're ignorant to some things that you may be aware of, right? Don't get mad at them because of that. Be gentle and be kind and they will come toward you for more conversation as opposed to turning away from you and never listening again. Because that's been my experience when I see these kinds of conversations sometimes out there. So, Dr. Corpios, keeping that in mind, we want to be able to have these broader conversations. But due to our personal lenses, it will make it difficult. How can we do that? How do we, when we know that in order for this to actually move forward, we would all have to begin to be closer to the same ideal? But if we are not, then it possibly cannot move forward. How can we address those that are totally opposed to, again, even us having this conversation now? Yeah, I think, you know, some of those conversations can be very difficult, right? You know, and I think that's part of what I try to do in my expert witness work is that when I argue for mitigation and death penalty cases and the homicide cases that I work, I try to explain it in a way that, yes, is academic, but that you can see how this person's life has been shaped by these larger structural factors, right? And I think having those kinds of discussions where we can really look at the entire picture, not just this criminal image of this person in front of us that denies them of their humanity, we need to remember that, yes, they made a bad decision. They made a crime that, in some cases, is very horrible, right? But why? Why did this happen in the first place? How can we understand what got this little kid up to this older gentleman that then ends up committing a very horrible crime? How do we understand that process? And it begins, I think, like this, having these kinds of conversations, talking with people that we don't always agree with, and saying, hey, can we find a middle ground? Maybe we don't fully appreciate restorative justice, but what else could we do to kind of come to that middle ground, right? And, you know, I know a lot of people that I work with are clearly guilty, right? And I know that my work has helped get some of them off a death row. I know that my work has helped, has been used to help plea negotiation and sentences and those kinds of things, right? So I know that, you know, by trying to educate folks, I know I can't convince everybody, right? In death penalty cases, I only need to convince one person in Arizona, right? Out of a jury of nine. That's easy to do, easier to do, right? Just one person, but when you've got a large group like we have today, how do you get everybody to work together to come to a conversation like this, right? And I think that's the difficult part that we need facilitators like you to kind of help us get out of that middle ground. Yeah, one thing is I feel like it's really important, like the big, I feel start to a solution to all these problems, it starts with everyone and it's something that everyone can do. And it's really, whenever there's an issue in the community, it starts with looking at it and going who needs help or if someone's offering a solution asking what are they offering and coming at it with that mindset I think really it's, it changes how you look at the situation because I honestly, I started doing that after my accident because I had to realize because I've now taken life and now it's hard, like I can't judge people the way that I was judging people before and if I want people to give me the benefit of the doubt, then I need to start giving the benefit of the doubt and it's very different, it's a very different perspective and the idea, like there are many times where I've really had to bite my tongue because my instinct is immediately whether it's watching the news or an incident that's close to me I want to react I want to and I I want the people to hurt like I've been hurt and it's hard to think in those moments who needs help and what is this person offering as a solution but when things get really hard I feel like that will lead to bigger solutions down the line. Excellent, thank you all very much for that in transitioning a little bit let's open up this discussion let's open it up to any questions that anyone in our audience may have all things on table I'm a professor here in social work and I also sit on the El Paso County Community Corrections Board and in learning more and reading I read about 25 cases a week as a board member to make the decision regarding can the judge or the DOC use community corrections as an alternative sentence and what I see is in the system that is so frustrating for me is that we are creating what I call a hamster wheel or revolving door and we're not helping individuals get the right treatment and support they need either coming out of DOC or even from prison in jail because the transition not everybody has an opportunity for community corrections and the real work regarding restorative any type of restorative is going to happen with the community it's not as available in the prison system as the general public thinks it is and making somebody so much money like big pharma that it's better to keep and medical insurance I'm using those analogies to keep because sick people make people a lot of money so if you use that analogy so let's just not address what really needs to happen or is it that we're not putting the right funding and systems in place because we know what the solution is and why isn't it happening and we're just creating more population in jails and in Colorado it is crazy I see individuals other than that have committed some type of really heinous crime the longest sentences I see are drug related or substance related such as selling, distributing or just having it on their person rather than sexual crimes or child abuse or domestic violence it is a system that confounds me sometimes because we're making people criminals that yes maybe they made a bad decision but they're not a bad person we're ruining people's lives so there I could talk about this all day why we know the answer why can't we do something about it I have an opinion here you kind of said it a lot yourself there but we know the prison is the worst thing no matter what when you go in there it's almost like higher ed for criminals you're just going to whatever you went in as you're probably going to come out and you're likely to commit crime and all those things community based corrections is a far better plan but the problem is our infrastructure from early on has been around incarceration so we have very few resources dedicated to that type of thing and I look at it like this since I've been in Colorado the mental health systems here are better than where I came from believe it or not Alabama was in really bad shape all of the money all of the money had been taken from mental health and put into prisons we were having to arrest people because there was no other option and so finally finally around 2018 it began to turn and the funds began to get moved over because the pressure got so high and finally they're going in the right direction but it's the same thing here there's not enough there's very little attention on that question that you're asking there aren't many people out there even talking about what are options we could be doing that would be better because it's just easier to just keep funneling them into prison the system is designed for that changing a system design is effort, work and money so we just keep doing what we've been doing and so I think the pressure somehow has to mount to get more attention on it I think another thing is that we are all like I know this for a fact when it works for me I am complacent and I am cool with it right like I had a situation where I went through legal system and I wanted him to hurt as much as I did I really wanted that but I after law therapy I do recognize that if homie had like mental health supports we both wouldn't be where we're at but that wasn't there we didn't have that so I do recognize that but at the same time I feel like it's hard because then you have to if I want this to work then I have to also make sure that when it works for me I also have to I can't condone it when it works for me I have to condone it wholesale which is incredibly hard to do when somebody's done wrong by you and you really want them to feel that and kind of going back to community corrections I think my niche is more so thinking like I'm more so like like addiction recovery like what's recovery you know and thinking about all like yes you can do all these things within the facility itself but it drops people once they're out there's nothing for people and on top of that inside the facility it is structured you have a place to go who to go to if you have an issue once you're out there it's just kind of do whatever you can if you can even do it right so in that way we are just constantly fumbling the ball because once people get out they're right back at it or worse off right especially when you're like okay you can give people therapy and all these systems to work through and all these supports but then when they're like out there on their own and most of these things just fall apart what are they supposed to do other than to go back to what they knew or something a little better because now they know a couple of new options right but that's not even if they're going to work for it on top of that thinking about the community's role a lot of changes individual but who's going to keep you accountable who's going to pick you up when you fall flat on your face some people just don't have that but at the same time the answer is not just incarcerate because that's horrible I would agree as well that I think we need to start by looking at the carceral straight state and knowing that it's built for punishment and not rehabilitation and we need to recognize that but we can change it too and again going back to the work that I've done with these kids I hear their stories I hear their stories of where they talk about being punished in elementary school in middle school and high school so now that we have a school to prison pipeline it's not just in the criminal justice system anymore it's now in our schools and so these young kids you know and we know from the literature the school to prison pipeline typically more likely will involve racialized minoritized youth and so we've set up a system on punishment and we certainly need to change that so I agree with what others have already said we need to change that system following up with that it's that mindset that really is the big different I went to treatment at Cedar on the Andrews campus before going to prison and both in treatment and prison they pull you out of society and then you are in there and then staff basically runs your life from that point on the difference is is that when you're in prison they keep you out of society that's our whole goal is to keep you out of society and then there's a little bit of trying to make sure you obey so you stay out of society treatment their goal is to help you get better so you can reintegrate into society when you get back out and they also that comes through in a lot of different ways and the other big thing to keep in mind with both treatment and prison is that pretty much everyone's coming back out like they're coming back out one way or another so you want everyone to be ready when they get out so in treatment a big way comes in is like encourage families to come in they have set times where families can interact and help and they have ways where they can families can send in support letters and things like that and it's guided through with counseling and they work through it and they can set it up that way and there's really there's no reason why we could set up when people need to be pulled from society to set it up that way just don't we keep on the focus on blame and punishment and since it's on blame and punishment then the thought is well I don't get counseling I can't afford counseling outside of prison so this person who committed a crime shouldn't be allowed to have treatment but in the end society's going to pay for it one way or another when someone's in crisis whether it's by either they're going by supporting them or by something's going to happen and someone gets hurt from it and it doesn't just hurt it hurts the person involved and it hurts their family and it hurts all these families and it spreads outward and it gets out of control Is restorative justice only offered to someone after their sentence is served or can it be used in probation as well? It can actually be used in lieu of a sentence especially right now for juveniles a lot of they like in Longmont they have a program actually where there's the Longmont Community Justice Project who works with Belize so that juvenile offenders basically juveniles who get arrested they can work with LCJP and then not have a felony on their record which is amazing they work with the people involved and it's a great program there's several programs like that around the country but it mainly is for juveniles sometimes they even have it for adults in like misdemeanor offenses but that's kind of where it is and then usually for more serious offenses then it's only offered like after the fact any other questions? So I can't speak for the whole Colorado Springs Police Department but here on our campus what you're seeing is you know it's a holistic thing about setting a culture and setting expectations so when I first got here one of the very first things I did was had an all hands on meeting everybody come in and I said let's talk about who we want to be you know as as a campus police department what are our values and I had every single person in our department write down all of the things that they think we should value I ended up with like 60 values right of all these things that we value and then I sent an email back out to them and I listed all 60 and I said now pick the top 6 things out of that list put a check mark 3456 on what you think and so when they did that we came out with you know the standard ones which are like professionalism and accountability and those things but two that really I was so proud of and I think is the difference here is we have inclusiveness right and we talk about that what is inclusiveness well here we make it an obvious value we talk about it all the time we want everyone on this campus no matter who they are to know that they are included right when it comes to our department it doesn't matter who you are and we try to do everything we can from hanging out in all the different areas of campus going to sporting events it doesn't matter we want everyone to know we care about them and then the other thing was guardianship right no police department says guardianship really right that's not sometimes in other campuses maybe but we wanted our views our way of doing things is we wanted every student here to feel like we were there like big brothers and sisters right not like the cops we're here to take care of you when you fall and make a mistake you know we want to treat you like we were somebody who actually we love you like what do we do when somebody makes a mistake that you love I do with my sons when they make a mistake I don't kick them out of the house right I hold them and hug them we have serious talks we we talk about where the right direction is but our whole process is to see success in everyone here and we make sure that our police department's culture is that way and our expectations are that way and we hold each other accountable right because I want to throw this out and say that cops are people cops have bad days and we have to look at each other and hold each other accountable and say I think you're having a bad day you know you need to before you go out there into the community you need to think about that take a break maybe you need to take the day off right maybe who knows what's going on in their personal lives but we hold each other accountable and I'm really really proud of them they they want this right they want this community to feel that and I think that's why you're seeing it maybe here and I wish I could speak more about the city and is a whole but I really just I don't know that answer so yeah so I've got two questions for a chief so what form of policing does the campus place for me to use and how can someone succeed in law enforcement yeah so the form I would most closely align with like community based right I mean I think ours goes a little farther and I'd almost call it family based policing you know but but as one of those main models you see it would be closest to that that I like I want us to go a step further and so and I think in order to be successful in law enforcement I love this question and it's you need to be well rounded right you don't need to have a one view of the world you need to understand and care about and truly care about that's a don't take that lightly you have to actually care about all the people in the world in the world around you regardless of how they see it right you might totally discreet doesn't matter you love them the same and you have to you really have to be that kind of person if you want to be successful in law enforcement too many people come into law enforcement with a very singular view of the world right maybe they they grew up in a certain kind of neighborhood and are only around the certain kind of people and all of that when they get in law enforcement they're going to struggle because cops have to deal with everyone right and you have to do it in the right way so that's what I think is most important can I go back to the question up top you know I don't know if I have a clear answer in terms of why CSPD is a little bit different I know there's still issues right I mean all we need to think about is Devon Bailey for example I've had students who have done research on the LGBTQI population here in Colorado Springs they voiced concerns that we don't often hear about you know I still hear from certain youth that there's some negative experiences particularly if you know they're gang involved but not the ones that I've interviewed so you know I know there were more experiences probably 30 40 years ago just talking to various individuals so you know maybe it's that shift in culture maybe it's you know I know there have been other issues around homelessness there's been a whole variety of issues that have been raised but I think you know what we're seeing with policing today at least what I've seen with CSPD in recent years is a willingness to listen to the community a willingness to hear the concerns and try to address those and I think that's a good start to be able to do that. Other questions both virtually and in person? I can kind of speak to something because I've been involved with the police department and also a Puzzle County Sheriff's Department and the municipalities and helping build the co-responder program and also the community response team and it really comes around our mental health crisis in this county that started coming together with agencies in behavioral health coming together about in 2012 and identifying the crisis and the fact that we have very Colorado, especially a Puzzle County has fewer resources than other places and the CJC population became unmanageable regarding the amount of people it was just as the sheriff said at the time we are a psychiatric hospital and so there were great efforts in the community around mental health and the sheriff and the chief of police made a commitment to get officers trained in CIT and mental health first aid and that over the years I've seen a shift greatly and most of I mean I don't know this statistically but a lot of problems I would say that people have maybe with those sworn officers and deputies that haven't gone through CIT training to understand and then there was kind of a I don't know if it's official or what you call it but there's a real effort in the co-responder program and the CRT program to not charge a charge with an individual that that you go to a call and if it has a behavioral health related issue if it's mentally health involved don't charge that person because all you're doing is setting up failure for that individual who cannot follow through and gets a bench warrant and so forth and so on and let's get that person to the right treatment, the right place the right time and that significantly reduced the population in CJC now there are you know it's not perfect but I think our community at least I've seen from the roots on the ground behavioral health clinician look and working so closely with law enforcement it has made a significant change so that would be what I would I was actually going to say that when you started talking I was going to throw out the CIT model and because what it has helped do it's helped officers be more empathetic because the training is really good so a little plug for all the cops out there there's a lot of anger toward them in a lot of ways but I will say the vast majority of the cops go into the work to do the right thing sure there are some that don't but the most of them do but over time when you only deal with negativity negativity all the time it erodes your empathy that's bad for policing what CIT has done is it's brought in training that teaches cops and reminds them of what it's like to not only be somebody who is in mental health crisis like how tough that is as the person but also how tough that is as family members and everybody around it the other thing CIT did that really helped was it requires communities to work together to provide the resources to keep them out of jail so before like I told you there weren't those resources it's like the cops had no options they just had to put you in jail well CIT has created a model where the resources are there so the cops don't have to do that now they can direct them in the right direction so those are some really positive things and I totally agree with you something else that I would like to see more of is sort of make cops spend more time working and like volunteering things like homeless shelters if cops spend let's say 99% of the interaction a police officer has with a person who is is negative it's when they're doing something criminal or whatnot so what happens is cops get this bias this bias that says homeless people are troublemakers and then they lose their empathy so what's really important is being able to work with people when they're at their best not their worst and it reminds you to be empathetic about people in general and I think policing is working in getting better because of that there are departments that don't do CIT there are departments out there I can't speak for them all but anyone that's doing CIT I agree all of our officers here are CIT certified as well one clarification can you clarify CIT and JCJ so that we can know and understand what those acronyms mean CIT is crisis intervention training thank you and I think this is horrible I've worked my whole career on criminal justice center so it's our county jail awesome how can an average everyday person help become part of this how can someone in general who doesn't have a background become involved in help talk too much so as I was saying before it's really looking at it whenever anything happens even when you're looking on the news and just watching everyday things trying not to blame and looking to see how to help and I feel like the biggest way to do that is you can do it from if it's from crisis to crisis if you're hearing about somewhat a crime that's happened on the news and understand think about what actually happened who's involved that person's family the victim their families other people who might have been hurt in this and does it help the way that they're presenting it even in the media is it being helpful and is there a solution being presented that will actually prevent this from happening again and the other aspect is that we're coming up on election season and there's going to be a lot of solutions being offered and promoted so the question is when someone comes up and says I'm the candidate that does this well is that helpful, is that useful is that going to prevent what's going to happen further on is that going to cause more pain and suffering and remember with each person whether they've made bad decisions or not they come with a family they come with loved ones and it go whatever happens it spreads out so how are we going to how can we use whatever happens and actually transform it meaningfully to help the community going forward and that's I feel like a big part of why justice keeps coming up in conversations I'd say be kind, be compassionate and be vocal I would say part of it is and I think I touched on this earlier is let's not fall victim to our prejudices and biases you know and I think when we see that certain kinds of things happen we automatically can kind of tend to do that that you know we tend to think of them as monsters we tend to think of them as evil persons let's remember that there is humanity there let's remember that there are a variety of reasons why people do the things that they do at least the gang members that I've studied that certainly has been the case and you know everyone's situation is different as well and so let's remember that you know our individual biases and prejudices can impact how we view specific groups and so you know I think that helps explain part of some of the experiences that we've had around policing growing up that we've talked about earlier and so we need to move beyond those I like to tell people anyone can be involved because everybody's involved like if we're talking about the school to prison pipeline nobody looks at the teacher in the third grade classroom right it's I just picked up this statistic from a conference I just went to but in preschool black kids are two times more likely to go to be suspended from school these are five and six year olds that just says you're five and six that already sends you down the journey of I don't like authority don't tell me what to do and on top of that you're just like I'm going to get in trouble they're out to get me that it puts in your head immediately so even if doesn't matter who you are you can challenging what you think you know challenging your biases your prejudices and on top of that I always tell people all the time that activism is a double-edged sword if it does not come back on you you're not doing it right everything you do you have to challenge yourself in that as well to challenge what you think you know why do you know what you know how do you know that so yes I think that is one big thing because I think we like like you were saying crime plays a role usually plays the that's not what we're supposed to do this is the thing that we don't like right but then crime has a social context why is that a crime how is it a crime who committed the crime why were they committing the crime so just asking questions why instead of just immediately going to that's a bad person they deserve to be there and starting to why the absolute heck out of it I think that gets us a little further than we were as we narrow down on our timing again thank you all thank everyone on virtual and everyone here I want us just to close out one statement one word a sentiment we're here to discuss can we fix crime can we absolutely I think defining fix is important right I think that the world can be much better you know I think we can do a lot better and perfection you know it's going to be tough but we should strive to be the best that we can be and that's the direction we need to go I think it depends on the type of crime that you speak about but if you know we're talking about the kinds of crimes that I look at I don't think we can right punishment is not going to work we need to address these larger inequalities and the way in which they filter down and influence people's experiences and shape their experiences that's why I often talk about constrained choice we have these larger pattern inequalities and people make these decisions based on these larger forces that are around them to put it simply how do we even get here yeah that is awesome again just wanting to thank you all personally it was awesome just being a moderator for this particular event and leaving with a few thoughts as we leave out and we go home and we think about what we have now taken in and been a part of I encourage us all to know that the change does begin with us it begins with us we are a part of this change that we are all sitting in this room is not by chance so we take that on as a challenge and then also holding each other accountable holding ourselves accountable that is something also to make sure that when you have the opportunity to create change do it as soon as you can it's important and then lastly spoken well by chief of police or people police or people so in keeping that in mind we can again start to create empathy for everyone the entire world not just ourselves, not just people that look like us, not just the type of people we know but everyone think that's all thank you all so much, you have a good night


The addition of inorganic spherical nanoparticles to polymers allows the modification of the polymers physical properties, as well as the implementation of new features in the polymer matrix. This review article covers considerations on special features of inorganic nanoparticles, the most important synthesis methods for ceramic nanoparticles and nanocomposites, nanoparticle surface modification, and composite formation, including drawbacks. Classical nanocomposite properties, as thermomechanical, dielectric, conductive, magnetic, as well as optical properties, will be summarized. Finally, typical existing and potential applications will be shown with the focus on new and innovative applications, like in energy storage systems. This article was authored by Thomas Hanneman and Dorothy Vingasabo.


Last time on Common Sense Soapbox. For hundreds of years, man has been forced to endure boring lectures. Until now, I give you the bore no bore. I can't believe we sold out on the first day! And now for today's episode of Common Sense Soapbox. Pop to the future! To think, just a year ago all I had was an idea. Honestly, I'm amazed. I am amazing! That's not exactly what I said. You're not perfect either. And sure, I've made a few mistakes here and there. But I corrected those mistakes. Because people stopped giving me money when I made them. Yep. Like I always say, if your business doesn't satisfy the customer, you're going under. That's a weird thing to always say. But it's true. You wouldn't be where you are now if you didn't know that. I suppose not. Charlie, I've become a successful entrepreneur. I've seen a product through its life cycle from idea to prototype to mass production. I've made tons of money. And my best friend is a penguin who wears people clothes. By all metrics, I should be the happiest guy on the planet. So, why aren't you? It's just, the more I succeed, the more difficult it is for me to enjoy my achievements. Ah, diminishing marginal utility. What? No! I mean, every time something good comes my way, I wish my friends were around to see it. So I could rub my superior understanding of economics in their face just once. I'm sorry, Bob, but they're in the past and you're here. But maybe I could change that. What are you saying? Charlie, I've been meaning to show you something. My newest invention! Wow, what's an exciting turn of events? Will Bob's time machine actually work? Or will the writers need a new crutch to maintain the status quo in the fee cinematic universe? Find out on the final episode of Common Sense Soapbox. Bob to the future!