Read Full Transcript EXPAND
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to “Amanpour and Company.” Here’s what’s coming up.
The shocking story of journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, condemnation of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, continues. We look at what’s
called MBS’ war in Yemen backed by the United States, mass famine, stalks the land now. Sanj Srikanthan of the International Rescue Committee joins
me.
Then, the Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Fox Butterfield, his new book explores whether crime is something that’s passed down through family.
Plus, could we be looking at Connecticut’s first Black Democrat in Congress? Jahana Hayes speaks to our Michel Martin about her remarkable
journey from high school teacher to mid-term contender.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London.
The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi has become emblematic of the shifting power dynamic in Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman’s
accumulation of authority has been ruthless and his foreign policy has been unusually audacious for the conservative kingdom.
For three years now, a Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Houthi rebels backed by Iran in Yemen’s civil war, also known as the forgotten or the
silent war. The Saudi’s have been accused of trying to hide the horrific conflict from journalist while the kingdom’ allies, the United States and
the United Kingdom, are under mounting criticism for supplying the Saudis with powerful weapons.
The human cost is heart wrenching and some of the images we’re about to show maybe disturbing to some viewers. Yemen now faces the worst famine in
a century. According to the United Nations which says the tragedy is entirely manmade, thousands have been killed, millions have been displaced
and the country is tittering a third cholera outbreak.
Nima Elbagir has the latest on the conflict as the casualties continue to mount with no end game in sight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NIMA ELBAGIR, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Another day in Yemen’s bloody war. This exclusive footage was sent to CNN by Houthi rebel backed
(INAUDIBLE) media, showing the aftermath of a direct strike by a Saudi-led coalition plane on Saturday.
Local officials say 19 men, women, and children were killed as they attempted to flee the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah. The site of an
existential struggle between the U.S.-backed coalition and the Haran-backed Houthi rebels. As ever in war, the victims are too often innocents caught
in the crossfire.
As scrutiny grows around allegations of the Saudi crown prince’s involvement in the disappearance of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi,
criticism is growing around MBS’ (INAUDIBLE) other great recklessness, the three-year-long war in Yemen.
Today, the World Food Programme told CNN the number of Yemenis facing famine could rise to nearly 12 million, making it the worst famine for a
century and one that is entirely manmade.
The fighting around (INAUDIBLE) Saudi-led bombardment aid agencies say has created a perfect storm, one that leaves the parties to the conflict and
their international backers with blood on their hands.
In the U.S. the drumbeat of criticism among lawmakers is growing across the political aisle.
BERNIE SANDERS, U.S. SENATE, DEMOCRAT: One of the strong things we could do is not only stop military sales, not only put sanctions on Saudi Arabia,
but most importantly, get out of this terrible, terrible war in Yemen led by the Saudis.
ELBAGIR: In spite of the president’s avowed support for Saudi Arabia, including rather large arms sales —
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I would not be in favor of stopping a country from spending $110 billion, which is an all-time record.
ELBAGIR: Here in Yemen, they’re hoping all the talk will finally result in action
Nima Elbagir, CNN London.
AMANPOUR: Well, you heard that figure of 12 million| people under the threat of famine. If that wasn’t terrible enough though, by the end of
this, aid agencies are saying the number was an underestimate and they’ve increased that to 14 million people facing imminent famine, that is roughly
half of Yemen’s population.
So, could the international fallout from the Khashoggi crisis is have any impact on this brutal conflict? Sanj Srikanthan of the International
Rescue Committee joins me now to talk about it.
Welcome.
SANJ SRIKANTHAN, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Do you — would you in the Human Rights Committee, the refugee committee, like to see that fallout, like to see that this terrible murder
of our colleague, actually highlight and bring some action on something that’s been going on for much, much longer?
SRIKANTHAN: Well, I do see the death of Khashoggi as a tragedy, of course, but we need to put it in the context, as you’ve rightly pointed out, of 14
million people at risk of starvation, and that includes millions of children.
So, if we can see the same level of attention that the world’s media has paid to this tragic death of a journalist applied equally to 14 million
people who are very much at risk in the coming months, then that is, I think, a moral victory.
AMANPOUR: So, the media has been doing its best to go there when it can. It’s very, very difficult, you have to get permissions from all over the
place, notably the Saudi coalition. But it’s not just the media, obviously, is it. I mean, you’re talking about governments, that the
British government is selling arms, the U.S. government is selling arms. What does the International Rescue Committee say to governments who are
selling arms right now?
SRIKANTHAN: Well, there’s two sides to this problem. The first you correctly point out are huge arms sales to Saudi Arabia. It’s not the
sales themselves that are resulting in civilian deaths and the death of children in Yemen, it’s what’s being done with those weapons.
So, our point is, governments who have influence, either through arms sales or other ways over the Saudi-led coalition should call upon all those who,
by the way, have conducted 18,000 air strikes since 2015, to stop bombing civilians and humanitarian aid workers. Because until that happens, we
can’t get aid in, people can’t go out and get food and tragic scenes like the ones you’ve just shown will replay itself out maybe as many as 14
million times.
AMANPOUR: It was a shock when we heard that that many people face very, very imminent disaster. We are told by the U.N. the World Food Programme,
that they have enough cereals maybe to last another two months. From your experience from the IRC and Human Rights Committee and the aid community,
what happens when cereals and that kind of meager food runs out in two months? Is there a pipeline that you can easily resupply? What happens.
SRIKANTHAN: Cereals and food supplies exists in the world. The supplies are there. We could always do with more but the access isn’t. Hudaydah
port is nominally open. But, in fact, they’re accused to get burst, they’re not allowing large container ships. So, it’s like a strangle hold
of food, and this port is meant to supply 70 percent of what Yemen needs.
So, at the moment, it’s supplies it can’t get out and people can’t get to the supplies. So, we are watching a tragedy that is preventable, both
through the association of air strikes on civilians but also opening up ports like Hudaydah.
AMANPOUR: And when you they are not letting it, who?
SRIKANTHAN: At the moment, are call is on the Saudi-led coalition to allow aid to get in through Hudaydah Port. But it’s calling on both sides to a
larger amount of access, at the moment through a series of checkpoints, permission slips, et cetera, they’re effectively creating barriers to the
most vulnerable. And our risk is the tactics on the ground are changing towards besiegement.
And as we’ve seen in Syria and other places, this is where civilians get caught up in a military tactic that results in starvation. It’s a very sad
thing but one I’ve seen in many conflicts.
AMANPOUR: Well, Sanj, you know part of your history and your experience has been with the British army, you spent many years as an officer. So,
give us your military analysis of what you just described as siege tactics, as squeezing these populations, as we’ve seen over and over in Syria. It
was a siege and starve and surrender tactic, wasn’t it?
SRIKANTHAN: Many times, in conflicts, these tactics extensively used to reduce the number of casualties on both sides. But when civilians are
caught in the middle of that besiegement, what ends up happening is that they are subject to starvation tactics that are being used as part of a war
effort.
And what we’re seeing in Yemen is that there are 300,000 civilians still in Hudaydah who are not getting access to food as much as they should, and
there are many other pockets like this. The result is, that particularly children under five are deteriorating much more quickly, that’s why we
focus on their age group.
And I can only imagine having seen this in other conflicts what it feels like when the first time your child cries because they don’t have enough
food, and we all know it as a parent, but then watching it over the weeks and days of a child not getting enough calories and slowly wasting away,
and that’s what’s happening, and it all originates with tactics that are designed to help combatants and not think about civilians.
AMANPOUR: You know, I’ve seen reports, photojournalists reports, where they found a child that’s eight years old but looks like he’s two years
old, completely scrawny, completely on the brink of — just literally skin and bones. And then, visiting that same family, the same child, six months
to a year later after they have been supplies of food, and suddenly that child is alive again. But, with crucial, crucial damage to their mental
facilities and to their stunting, actually, of their growth
SRIKANTHAN: Yes, I’ve seen exactly that in East Africa famine where, firstly, I’ve seen children crying because they didn’t understand why their
legs didn’t work, because they didn’t understand that they were malnourished and then slowly recovering. But day by day, the damage to the
brain can’t be fixed in the way that physical strength can be restored through treatment.
AMANPOUR: I’ve seen this visually and graphically demonstrated by our colleagues from Yemen. So, when you look at this now, what is the big
challenge apart from the access, obviously that you said, what does the IRC see as its strategy, its plan militarily, I mean, I’m asking you for your
military analysis first, do you see an exit strategy? Do you see any way that either side can be brought to the table to stop this?
SRIKANTHAN: Well, that’s our hope as humanitarians, that both sides will be willing to talk. We’ve known with previous peace talks that one or
other side is not willing to engage. We hope that particularly with the political pressure and the attention on the Saudi-led coalition, that that
side can be persuaded to end this conflict through negotiation. And equally, that the Houthi militias also do the same.
Failing which, we are calling on the ground for free access to humanitarians to reach all civilians in need as well as truly opening
Hudaydah Port to allow sufficient aids to get in.
AMANPOUR: So, is that a ceasefire you’re calling for or particular humanitarian corridors or temporary ceasefires to let those convoys go
through?
SRIKANTHAN: Well, things are so desperate that we would take anything, including a ceasefire or humanitarian access. But ultimately, these are
stopgap solutions as is all aid. The reality is, that the only way we bring a full solution is through peace and the restoration of full access
to Yemen for commercial trade, as well as paying people their salaries. Because at the moment, we’re helping a lot of families who could support
themselves if the government was functioning and paying salaries.
AMANPOUR: And what about — again, you were the International Rescue Committee, it deals a lot was refugees, obviously. Can these people get
out? Can they flee this disaster?
SRIKANTHAN: It’s very difficult for many people to flee partly because of a patchwork control between the two sides. But also, where would you see
to in that part of the world, there aren’t many places.
And in fact, what we’re seeing is that people are trying to cope with whatever reserves they hold onto and that’s why you’re seeing this
concentration of malnourishment, you’re seeing this huge cholera epidemic, the largest in history. And also, I think, it’s probably why you’re not
seeing as much media attention as there should be, because they’re not becoming refugees. The problem is contained within Yemen.
AMANPOUR: So, let’s talk about the bigger refugee issue because there are very ugly narratives that seem to be, you know, taking most of the oxygen
in the public sphere about refugees and about immigrants, and I know that the IRC and others in the same community, you know, trying to get a
different narrative out about refugees.
But it seems to me that you’re failing and the political leaders are winning, those who want to use this issue for their own political ends.
What do you need to do to — and what should people understand about refugees when they’re from Syria or Yemen and indeed when they come to
Europe?
SRIKANTHAN: I think you’re using exactly the right words, refugees. And I think sometimes we tend to use two different words, migrants and refugees,
like they’re the same thing. You can be an economic migrant who is leaving a country looking for a job elsewhere and a better life. But a refugee has
a real fear of persecution, starvation and in this case, in Yemen, a combination of all of these things.
So, they are truly vulnerable and they’re truly at risk and many of them, if they can, will look to see their country. And we deserve — and we
should be applying a different standard in terms of compassion and understanding.
Sadly, I think the narrative is to assume the worst intent in people, and that’s really the change I’ve seen over the course of my career.
AMANPOUR: But, I mean, look at what’s happening in Germany, for instance, (INAUDIBLE), whenever it might, this be real sort of far writer, some of
them Neo-Nazi tendencies are using this, including untruths about refugees. What have you — what would you like to tell a public audience about, let’s
say, crime in Germany in refugee areas where they’ve let, you know, refugees and — or assimilation of these of these people?
SRIKANTHAN: I would say, firstly, the association between refugees and crime is entirely wrong. It’s your character that determines if you’re
going to be a criminal, not your immigration status.
So, when you associate a refugee with a crime, it’s a really lazy form of thinking. When, in fact, you could be of any nationality, you could be a
refugee, a migrant, a citizen and commit a crime. Many refugees are, on average, better at integrating into societies than almost anyone else.
In the U.S., we did a national survey that showed a refugee is twice as likely to repay their car loan as a citizen. That’s just an example. But
also, for these countries who are kindly taking in refugees, engaging them and integrating them into the economy is the way to increase your GDP and
therefore, benefit from this.
AMANPOUR: What is your worst fears if this tide of anti-refugee, anti- immigrant tide continues and you get these parties who thrive on this even more powerful, more people in their parliaments and maybe, in some cases,
winning and being in government?
SRIKANTHAN: It’s a real concern for us. And the fight in Europe is between growing far right movements like this. My concern is that if we
don’t fight back with a real narrative and real stories but also real facts and data, and the narrative will be one which is an accurate but also
result in really a permanent shift in compassion.
And let’s face it, if we’re taking fewer refugees, we’re not solving the problem, we’re just moving it elsewhere. And as we’ve seen with conflicts
growing all over the world, these conflicts eventually will come to our shore.
So, it’s a global problem, much like climate change, much like so much else, we can’t just ignore it and pretend like it can be stopped at our
borders, it doesn’t work that way.
AMANPOUR: And circling back to what is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis as identified by the United Nations, Yemen, what is it like — I
mean, you actually engage with Saudi authorities. I mean, the head of the IRC is David Miliband, former British Foreign Secretary, very well-known,
very well respected around the world. He brings, you know, heft to this position, he can talk to them as equals, so to speak.
What is the — I mean, do you ever — do you engage them? Do you talk to them? Do they say anything about the civilians?
AMANPOUR: Well, the thing with humanitarians, is we’ll talk to anyone about anything that we can get done that will help people and we don’t take
favor in terms of who we talk to. So, in any conflict, we’re talking to all sides.
The problem is that I think all sides feel they can win a military victory. And the reality is that they may or may not be able to do that. But the
human cost is intolerable, it is as severe as anything I’ve seen, probably anything we’ve all seen since World War II.
So, we need to try and get people out of the all or nothing position and ask them to come to a negotiated solution. Because otherwise, we’re going
to see quite a few more years of suffering.
AMANPOUR: And again, just to clarify, do you see this as a moment where the leadership of the IRC can jump on this current crisis over Jamal
Khashoggi and try to persuade those who are principally responsible, and you’ve just identified them as a Saudi-led coalition, to rethink this?
SRIKANTHAN: Well, I hope, firstly, is that we’re not going to be alone in calling for this. But certainly, we’re willing to speak up and say, “Those
who are in an ability to reduce civilian casualties and make the first step should be recognized if they are willing to do that.” And I think the
Khashoggi affair has shown that there is a moment in time when the world’s media is paying attention to this issue and we’ll do everything we can to
raise the case of 14 million starving people.
AMANPOUR: And what is the IRC’s position on moral leadership and human rights in foreign policy? I mean, you heard and we’ve over and over again
heard these soundbites from President Trump saying, “I do not want to risk $1 billion dollars’ worth of Saudi arms sales,” i.e. jobs for American
people by sanctioning them if — you know, no matter what’s the truth in this case. He just doesn’t want to do it because he associates in those
kinds of terms.
What is the IRC’s position on leadership in foreign policy in these cases?
SRIKANTHAN: I find that people have more compassion than sometimes leaders are willing to give them credit for. And certainly, if you look at the
generosity of the American people over many decades in terms of taking the most vulnerable, going back to Jews flee in Europe in World War II who were
resettled in the U.S., that’s how the IRC was formed, to today, still taking over 29,000 refugees a year.
People have lines, and one of those is that, yes, manufacturing is important. But when the manufacturing results and weapons being given to a
country that is bombing and causing human suffering in a conflict, we really need to ask ourselves, what would people really say about that.
AMANPOUR: There have been accusations that some of the killings of civilians’ amount to international war crimes and calls for accountability.
Again, what is the IRC’s position on this and do you agree that some need to be held accountable at the highest level?
SRIKANTHAN: We’re not experts in determining whether a war crime has been committed. But certainly, we would join calls for an investigation, an
impartial investigation, into whether war crimes were committed and then those who did are held to account.
AMANPOUR: Sank Srikanthan, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
SRIKANTHAN: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: And from that catastrophic violence and potential international war crimes, we turn now to crime on a local but still staggering trajectory
in the United States. It’s told through the story of one family and how its own history of violence and crime has been passed down through the
generations.
The Pulitzer prize-winning writer, Fox Butterfield, has spent the past 10 years following the lives of the Bogle family in Oregon. Over the decades,
dozens of relatives have served prison time. His new book is called “In My Father’s House: A New View of How Crime Runs in the Family.” And
Butterfield paints a family tree that is riddled with criminality from root to branch.
It is an incredible finding. And I recently spoke with Butterfield about this extraordinary phenomenon that can determine an even encourage
criminality.
Fox Butterfield, welcome to the program.
FOX BUTTERFIELD, AUTHOR, “IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE”: Thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: So, this is really an extraordinary examination that you’ve done. I mean, who knew that crime ran in the family. How did you just
decide to focus on this? How did you even find the family in question?
BUTTERFIELD: I was covering crime in criminal justice for the “New York Times” for about 15 years and I kept reading about these studies which have
been done in recent years, showing that crime tends to run in the family. And some of them, the proportions are incredibly strong as one of the
studies which was done by some academics from the University of Cambridge done in South London really from the — from 1961 and 2001.
And they found that 5 percent of families account for half of all crime and 10 percent of families account for two-thirds of all crime. And they’ve
been very, very similar studies done around the United States in different cities. Always coming back with basically the same findings.
AMANPOUR: So, let’s just talk about how you focus on this family, the Bogle family, and that there are dozens of criminals in that one family.
Tell me about the family.
BUTTERFIELD: Yes. So, this — I found the family really by happenstance. A friend of mine who worked in the Oregon Department of Corrections, in the
Oregon prisons, mentioned to me that he thought — he knew of a White family that had — what he thought were six members in prison and he said
if I’d come out to Oregon, because I was then living on the East Coast, I could interview some of the members of the family in prison. And the “New
York Times” agreed to let me do that.
And — but what we didn’t know at that time was, it wasn’t six members of the family who are in prison, it’s really six-zero, 60 members of the
family who have been, at one time or another, in prison.
The first of these — the members of this family, and their name is Bogle, the first — I met this young man, Tracey Bogle, who was serving a 16-year
prison sentence. And he said, “What you’re raised with you grow to become. There is no escape.”
And that’s — that for me is — at the heart of it, it’s imitation. Because the members of this family, when they grew up, their fathers and
their mothers would take them out to commit crimes with them and saw themselves as a crime family and they thought it brought them great honor.
AMANPOUR: So, let me let me just dig down into this. You mentioned Tracey Bogle. His precise quote in your book is, “If I had been raised in a
family of doctors, I’d probably be a doctor. But I was raised in a family of outlaws who hated the law.” So, that’s kind of, you know what, you say,
“I was raised to be a criminal.”
But what I think he’s really addressing is one of the issues you talk about, that taking children to visit relatives in prison or in jail
basically normalizes or glamorizes the experience. And I’m just going to quote some from your book, “No one recognized at the time, as some
criminologist did later, that taking a child to visit his older brother also father in prison could be endangering the child, making him think that
life in prison is normal or even glamorous not dangerous and frightening.” And you say that millions of kids have a parent in jail.
BUTTERFIELD: Yes. We have something like 5 million children in the United States who have a parent in prison. It’s an extraordinary number. And
there’s been a lot of effort by very well-meaning people to try to get the children to visit their parents on a regular basis, to try to keep the
family together.
But it’s a very open question whether that doesn’t do the reverse of what it’s meant to do, that it does normalize the experience of going to prison.
And the kids, when they go to visit their fathers in prison, are impressed by how tough and strong their parents — their fathers appear.
AMANPOUR: So, you mentioned that figure, it’s like more than half of all inmates in the United States are parents. So, that means so many millions
of kids have parents in prison. You know, many sociologists and experts and child protection officers believe that it’s neglect and a lack of love
that causes kids to go off the deep end in whichever way, including in crime.
But your book is saying, in a way, almost the opposite, it’s loved by their parents, it’s care by their parents, only on the wrong trajectory that’s
causing these kids to want to imitate them.
BUTTERFIELD: Yes. And it sort of perverts the whole meaning of family values because we tend to assume that family values must be good, but
family values can be very bad too.
AMANPOUR: You’ve described in detail in your book how some of the people you talk to describe how they came to crime. So, here’s one person in the
book, Bobby, Bobby Bogle. You write, Bobby could remember only one Christmas when his father gave him a present, a heavy metal wrench in a
plain brown paper bag presented it with no explanation.
All right, Fox, continue the story.
BUTTERFIELD: So, Bobby was surprised when he was presented this present, a wrench in a brown paper bag the night before Christmas, because he didn’t
know exactly what it was for. He was only four years old but he did know that from a conversation around the dinner table his father had been in
prison in Texas and took great pride in the fact that he had a criminal record and that he had been in prison for a big burglary.
So, Bobby figured out pretty quickly that it was probably of burglar’s tool. And the next day, he and his older brother snuck out of the house
early in the morning on Christmas Day and they went to the local grocery store and they broke into the grocery store and then in the back, they were
able to use the wrench to open a cage which was filled with Coca-Cola bottles, and they grabbed the whole lot of the Coca-Cola bottles and took
them home to have a Christmas celebration.
And when Bobby got home and his father saw all the Coca-Cola bottles, he said, “Yes that’s my sons,” and he was very proud that they had broken into
the store and brought the stuff home versus his father — if they had gotten caught, his father would have taken out a belt or a switch from a —
and beaten them on their legs and backs. He said, “Crime is OK as long as you get away with it.”
AMANPOUR: Except for, in this family, as you said, 60 members are in prison. Is the father in prison? Is Bobby in prison? What happened to
them?
BUTTERFIELD: Well, the father has passed away a number of years ago from cancer. But the — but Bobby is still in prison. Tracey is still in
prison. There are least five members of the family still in prison and three are on escape status, they have broken out of custody. But — and I
believe that the states where they are don’t want to find them because it’s just too expensive to try to hang on to them.
AMANPOUR: Oh, my goodness. So, what is the solution? Because again, you know, many people believe all sort of family values, ethic makes us want to
keep families together. You know, you’ve been to prison or your parent is in prison or whatever. When you come out, well, let’s all get back
together again and try to rebuild and reknit the family. But you’re suggesting that the opposite might be a better way to stop recidivism.
BUTTERFIELD: There are some interesting new programs. There is one which is — has found that if inmates can be persuaded voluntarily, when they get
out of prison, when they’re released, to move somewhere else than going home because they’re much better off. So, the State of Maryland, in
Baltimore City, have a program now where they will actually give inmates housing vouchers if they agree not to come back to the city of Baltimore
but to move somewhere else in the state. And these men are having much lower rates of re-arrest.
So, that’s a helpful program. And there are also some programs now developed to bring therapy to the whole family. So, they actually — if a
judge orders it, if a kid is getting in trouble, the judge will order this program and a team of specialists, psychologists and social workers will go
to the family’s house and basically take up residence and then try to treat the entire family try, you know, try to get to know the sisters and
brothers, the fathers and the mothers or grandparents if they’re around, and work with them all for a period of months. And that program called
Multisystemic therapy is having really quite good success. But there (INAUDIBLE) very different view of things than just keeping people in
prison.
AMANPOUR: Describe to me what noticed about criminals who had been arrested in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans,
that was back in 2005.
[13:30:00] BUTTERFIELD: A large proportion of the inmates in the State of Louisiana came from New Orleans. When Katrina in 2005 pulverized a lot of
the housing, especially for poor people. When inmates were due to be released after Katrina, they had no place to return to. And a lot of them
migrated to the neighboring State of Texas.
And a young criminologist there at the University of Texas went to study these people and he found that after one, three, and five years, that they
had much lower rates of committing new crimes than the people who had gone back home to New Orleans.
AMANPOUR: OK. I think it’s really incredible and all these figures that you’re talking about really do speak for themselves. Just as another
example which is fairly extreme. In Italy where children who worked with the mafia, they were separated from their parents. Explain that one for
me.
BUTTERFIELD: There was a state prosecutor in near Naples, in the south of Italy, who got really tired of having children of mafia fathers out
committing crimes because the mafia discovered if the children committed the crimes, they got less — much less punishment than if the adults did
it.
So he devised a way to basically put some of the children of these mafia parents into a kind of state witness protection program and move them away
from their homes somewhere else in Italy. And the program has proven to be very successful. In fact, Italy has now adopted it as a national law and
so codified it. And so they can do this for a lot of the children of mafia families.
AMANPOUR: That’s remarkable. Tell me again about the Bogle family. Are there any individuals who have broken out of this cycle of violence? I
mean it’s about a hundred years cycle of violence in this one family.
BUTTERFIELD: Maybe the best example is a young woman named Ashley Bogle, who’s now about 25, who was able to get — who devoted herself to her
schoolwork and she got straight A’s always through high school. And she actually applied to and went to college. And she’s now graduated from
college and she’s a nursing technician.
And she’s got her own apartment and her — she’s got her own car and she’s — as a single mom, she’s raising a three-year-old daughter. And oddly
enough, every day in her commute from her home to her job in a hospital, she has to pass right by big prison where one of her cousins is still
incarcerated.
AMANPOUR: The previous study you did and you wrote a previous book on how crime runs through families, you profiled a black family, the Bosket’s who
multiple generations had criminality. What made you — what was the reaction to that? Was there any tinge of racism that you were, you know,
concerned about or criticized for? And what made you then want to explore this white family, the Bogles, who I’ve just been talking about?
BUTTERFIELD: When I wrote the book about the black family which had three generations or four generations of men who were murderers, I was concerned
initially about that I would be charged as being a racist but that never happened. In fact, because I traced the sort of the history or the origins
of murder in the United States back to the white southern slave owners.
Because Africans who were brought as slaves to the United States were basically brought to the south and they became Americanized as Southerners.
And they picked up on the values of the slave owners that they saw — or the people who work with slaves around them and responding with force to
insults was a common everyday thing.
In fact, in addition to duals which was something the upper class could participate in, a lot of the lower class people in the south had a game
that was called wrestling in which the object was to chew off your opponent’s nose or gouge out their eyes or jump off their fingers. And
there were lots of white Southerners in this — in the south in the 17th and 18th centuries who had the marks of missing fingers or gouged out eyes
and ears and noses.
So Fox, doesn’t this have a potentially huge potentially game-changing effect in how you view prisoners and the act of imprisonment here in the
United States? First of all, it is the most incarcerating country in the world and young black men are overly represented in the prison population
in the [13:35:00] United States.
But if you’re saying that in this study, a lot of the crime can be traced back to what they learned from slave owners and plantation owners, I don’t
know, is this something to be learned on a macro level from that when it comes to fighting crime or dealing with incarceration in this country?
BUTTERFIELD: One of the paradoxes here is that the United States, you’re right, does have the highest rate of incarceration of any country in the
world by far. And blacks are very over-represented in our prisons but the majority of crime is still committed by whites in the United States. And
that’s a paradox which doesn’t get discussed very often.
AMANPOUR: Do you account for variables, as they say, because you say that the Bogles, there was a strain of bipolar disorder running through the
family, that obviously there was extreme poverty? Were those — did you take that into account? Could they account for the criminality?
BUTTERFIELD: Those are some good questions and some tough ones. I think with — yes, it’s true that the Bogles had a good deal of mental illness, a
diagnosed mental illness, schizophrenia, a manic depressive bipolar disorder. At least half a dozen members of the Bogles family were
diagnosed with those conditions.
So that’s a problem and we don’t know enough about how to treat people who are both mentally ill and are prone to committing crime. That’s a very
hard one. We — in fact, in the United States, a large proportion of people in our jails and prisons are often suffering from mental illnesses.
Maybe as high as 25 to 30 percent.
AMANPOUR: That’s a huge number. And finally, you do follow up on some of these — some of the girls who you just described to me have broken out of
the cycle like Ashley for instance. I’m just wondering what drew you to following up how is she doing now, and what even drew you? Apart from your
reporting for “The New York Times”, what drew you to stick with this phenomenon of crime and families?
BUTTERFIELD: I think perhaps because the first book I did about the Bosket’s, about the black family, and then reading all of the studies which
have been done in recent years showing that statistically, the crime tends to run in families. I really wanted to find a white family and try to take
race out of the equation to see if there was something that crime was not about race.
Because an awful lot of Americans tend to assume that people — if people are black that they’re going to – they’re more likely to become criminals.
But the — so I was hoping to find a white family with a large number of inmates to show that this has really nothing to do with race at all.
AMANPOUR: And Ashley, you keep up with her.
BUTTERFIELD: Yes, we stay in touch every few weeks. We talk. And I keep watching to see — but she’s really not been in any trouble. She’s a
wonderful person. And there are some other members of the family. She has a cousin named Tammy Bogle who ran a sort of a halfway house for prisoners
coming out of the state prisons who were convicted as sex offenders. And she found her salvation literally through religion being very very devout
Christian.
AMANPOUR: Amazing. Fox Butterfield, really fascinating study. Thank you so much indeed.
BUTTERFIELD: And thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: That really is quite a stunning phenomenon in society, one that authorities are pouring over.
Now, our next guest overcame her own humble beginnings to change the lives of others for the better. Jahana Hayes didn’t have the easiest ride to
where she is now. Growing up amid poverty and violence, she got pregnant at 17 but her school and her family helped and supported her to pursue her
education. And she rose to become American Teacher of the Year in 2016.
Her next goal is no less ambitious as she aims to be the first black congresswoman in New England. She told our Michel Martin about her amazing
story.
MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Tell us a little bit about your story for people who aren’t familiar with it.
JAHANA HAYES, 2016 AMERICAN TEACHER OF THE YEAR: I think my story really frames my decision making and it’s the lens through which I view the world.
I grew up in public housing. My grandmother raised my brother and I because my mother, other people in my family, struggled with substance
abuse you know. It was a part of our life. It was a part of our community. We didn’t have much and that was — not much was expected.
I got pregnant with my daughter. In high school, I had to go to an alternative program at 17 but my mom had me at 17 and my grandmother had
her at 17. So just not a lot of hope [13:40:00] in that situation but —
MARTIN: It seemed normal to you?
HAYES: It definitely seemed normal. It definitely seemed normal. And I feel like as I got older and was exposed to more people, I realized that
there were different ways of being and doing. And just took advantage of every opportunity I had to interact with people who were not similarly
situated.
MARTIN: I was going to ask you about that. I mean you went on. You got your bachelor’s, you got your Masters and you got your certification.
HAYES: Yes.
MARTIN: Kudos. But I’m just wondering how it is or why you think you were able to keep going when a lot of other people faced with the same
circumstances haven’t been able to do that. What do you think it is that kept you going?
HAYES: First of all, I knew I didn’t want that situation for my daughter. I know I wanted something different. It was so important to me to at least
try. And there were many times where I didn’t even expect to succeed but I know I had to just try. And I think it was more for my daughter than for
me.
MARTIN: How did it work at that age when you were 17? I mean you never dropped out of school as I understand.
HAYES: I went to an alternative program.
MARTIN: Went to a program. So what happened? Did you keep the baby with you or how did you manage all that?
HAYES: Well, I had an incredibly supportive family. My grandmother, my aunts, my mother eventuality but just didn’t really understand why I wanted
to go to school so badly but were willing to help me, do whatever they could do.
When I went to community college, I worked nights. I worked third shift. My grandmother came to my house, stayed with — I had two children at the
time. And in the morning, I went to school full time. Just my family, people at my church just really were incredibly supportive even though what
I was attempting to do was different than what they were used to. They know it was important to me so it was important to them.
MARTIN: Tell me about your teaching career. What do you teach and —
HAYES: My teaching career was 13 years at Kennedy High School which is one of the high schools in the same city where I grew up. I’ve taught U.S.
History, World History, Comparative Government, Geography Civics and the Constitution. And I created an African-American History course in my
school.
MARTIN: Why did you want to become a teacher?
HAYES: I think I was born to be a teacher. There was never a moment where I decided I want to be a teacher. I mean I was that kid who played school,
who lined up dolls who just always did that. I put such a high value on the work that teachers did.
All the teachers that I had interacted with or most of the teachers that I interacted with really believed in the profession and loved what they did.
And it’s just who I thought I was supposed to be.
MARTIN: So tell me about being Teacher of the Year. What was that like?
HAYES: Well —
MARTIN: Did you get a crown?
HAYES: I got an apple. So —
MARTIN: A real apple that you could eat?
HAYES: A crystal apple.
MARTIN: Oh, a crystal. Oh, OK.
HAYES: Which is wonderful. Yes. But — so I was named the Teacher of the Year in, first my school, and then in our district. So the City of
Waterbury, I was selected as their Teacher of the Year and Waterbury had never had a State Teacher of the Year.
And there’s this process that starts application and then interview. It’s a long process. And then one person is selected.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Jahana, please join me to accept this award for America’s Educators, the crystal apple as the
National Teacher of the Year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That’s the video that everyone sees at our ceremony where Obama named me Teacher of the Year. But I think what people don’t realize —
MARTIN: (INAUDIBLE).
HAYES: Well, for two reasons. Well, one of those reasons, my daughter was in the audience. So my family was there. And just the journey from, you
know, being her mom to — I was the first person in my family to finish college.
You know, my daughter went on to go to college. In the space of eight years, we went from no college graduates to a second generation college
educated family. And my daughter was sobbing. And I was there as her mother, you know, being honored at the height of my profession which was
unbelievable.
As a black woman, it was just a tremendous, tremendous honor because I’ve said this before, there were only five African-Americans on that stage and
three of them were me, the president, and the secretary of education. You know, I was saying, you know, excellence happens in these communities.
MARTIN: And so why did you decide to run for Congress? Did you have like a eureka moment where you’re like bagging groceries or were you like you
know what?
HAYES: I did have a eureka moment. I was a teacher there during the transition of the two secretaries of education. And the incoming
secretary, you know, the first time we were in a room together she made a comment that [13:45:00] she wanted to move government out of the way so
that parents could make the decisions for their children.
And I remember just thinking, but who would have me — who would have spoken for me? You know, I didn’t have a parent that could do that. I
didn’t have a family who knew how to advocate for me. I was thinking isn’t that your job to make sure that education works, that kids can go to any
school in this country and they’re good schools.
MARTIN: What do you think you add that isn’t already there in Congress?
HAYES: I think what I add or what teachers add is just that we have this tremendous ability to collaborate. You don’t pick and choose who comes in
your classroom. Whoever’s there becomes your student and you work hard for them.
But I think the other thing that I add, and so many teachers, when I decided I was running, what I heard is “Well, all you know about is
education” but education is not a single issue topic. You know, when kids come in my class, you hear when mom lost your job or I have to change
schools because we’re moving because we can’t afford to live there or we lost our house or one of my parents is incarcerated or my grandma can’t get
a visa or I can’t play sports because I didn’t get a physical because I don’t have health insurance.
So we see directly how every single one of these policies impacted communities. So when people are talking about policies and dollars intent
in the economy, we have the stories of families playing in our head because we know how families are being affected. And I think that there’s this
added layer of empathy that comes along with my profession, that forces you to see beyond partisanship. And, you know, simple dollars and cents and
policies and really how does this affect people.
MARTIN: In an article in “The Huffington Post” a couple weeks ago said that 1 in 500 teachers and other educators are running, I’m looking it up
because I want to be sure I have the number right, are running for office this year. Why do you think that is?
HAYES: We saw that as a profession, we’re being held responsible for so many policies that we had no part in drafting or being a part of. When I
was Teacher of the Year, oftentimes I’d travel to different states or be in different rooms talking about education policy. And I was the only
educator or the only teacher in the room.
I think we saw what happened in Oklahoma, in West Virginia, in Washington State where teachers came together and said, “We have to speak up for our
profession.”
MARTIN: You’re referencing teacher strikes and protests?
HAYES: Mm-hmm. You know, we have to help people understand what it is that we do. And I think it just came to the point where we can’t wait for
anyone else to do that for us.
MARTIN: There have been those famous movies about the newcomer who goes to Washington and wants to be different and wants to do things differently.
And there’s always the sort of the moment when reality hits. And I wonder if you think about going to Washington and having Washington change you
more than you change Washington.
HAYES: Well, I’m definitely not naive to that. But I think I’ve had so many challenges in my life that could have and sometimes should have left
me angry or discouraged or disappointed. And I always chose an alternative route and it’s worked. It’s worked in my life. I’ve seen it work in the
lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of young people. One of the things I say on my campaign all the time is that hope is the strategy.
MARTIN: Let’s say the Democrats take the House back and you are part of the House Democratic Majority. What’s your priority?
HAYES: My heart is in education. So I really think that we need to take some long hard look at the direction we’re going in education. But
different than what people think, I think that we’ve done a lot of — we’re looking at education and the failures in education but so much of our focus
has been on post-secondary education, getting kids ready for college and success through that track.
We haven’t done enough with career readiness, with preparing a talented workforce for the next generation of jobs that are available, really
celebrating working. You know, showing kids that there are multiple pathways to success.
We talk about free college and that we’ll be in that direction but what about career training? What about make — I have so many young people who
don’t enjoy school. Just as what it is, they don’t find success, they don’t feel valued. We really have to start to look at what are the jobs of
the future and are we adequately preparing this generation, you know, for the jobs of the next 50 years?
Clean energy jobs, you know, precision manufacturing, healthcare, all of those things where we have jobs in Connecticut that remain unfilled and
students that are graduating at a much higher rate and not going to college, really bridging the gap on those two things.
MARTIN: Is there any way in which you do find common cause with the Trump administration? Because it strikes me that some of the educational
policies being pursued by this administration are in alignment with that. They do believe in career training. They do believe in deemphasizing
college as the main choice for most people. Are there any policies of the Trump administration that you actually do support?
HAYES: I think any policy that would benefit the people in my community. I mean I don’t care who the author is on that. [13:50:00] I think my main
concern would be not removing the opportunity — not privatizing those opportunities, not removing the equitable access to those opportunities.
We hear a lot about charter school and choice and all of those things but I recognize that for so many people, the school and their corner is their
only choice. So making sure that all of those options are available to everybody is just very important to me.
I think healthcare is another big issue in our district. A lot of people are very concerned about their insurance benefits, their Social Security,
all of these things and just making sure that the people in my community are not disproportionately affected.
You know, the environment, the hollowing out of the EPA is troubling for the people in Connecticut. We have some of the most beautiful landscapes
and natural resources but we also have manufacturing communities from 50 years ago who rely on agencies to regulate, you know, what goes in the
ground, you know, the remediation of some of these factories and buildings. That’s real. You know, these things are happening.
MARTIN: If elected, you’d be the first African-American woman elected from New England. Does that mean something to you?
HAYES: Well, Connecticut Democrats have never sent a person of color to Congress, period. I wasn’t even — I never even thought about that. But I
can tell you, when I — the first time I read it in print, it was painful for me because I know that’s not the state that I live in.
I know in Connecticut, I benefited from opportunities. There have been amazing people who are not minorities who have helped me. So this idea
that, you know, we’ve never sent a representative and then there was a lot of criticism because, oh, its identity politics, that’s the only thing you
want to run on.
And I said, well, I can’t take this skin off. This is who I am. You know, my experiences are framed through this skin. All I’m saying is that all of
these experiences are important and they matter. But I know for so many people, not just in the African-American community, but for so many people
who have never seen themselves represented, it just is so incredibly powerful because you begin to at least imagine that maybe it’s possible.
MARTIN: Jahana Hayes, thank you so much for talking with us.
HAYES: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here. Thanks.
MARTIN: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Jahana Hayes is one of the record number of women who appear on election ballot in November’s midterm, sort of the class of 2018.
And join us next week for my interview with the British icon and legend of the screen Michael Caine. He’s famous for some of our most celebrated
movies such as Zulu, The Italian Job and Get Carter. He’s releasing a new memoir on his remarkable career and he tells me about life, love, and why
he started acting as a young boy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: When you first went to be an actor at these various youth clubs in your youth, you are looking through the windows, you thought well that
was kind of nice. And you describe yourself as a bit of a geeky, awkward sort of teen.
MICHAEL CAINE, BRITISH ICON: Yes, I was.
AMANPOUR: And maybe that was a good place to go and get your first kiss.
CAINE: Yes, that was. Yes. I was in a youth club and I was — I went upstairs to play basketball on the roof and I passed this door with two
glass windows and I noticed it and wonder, I thought what is it about this and I realize it was full of all the prettiest girls in the club. And so I
just looked further, I wonder what they’re doing and they’d always be good looking and talking to each other and all that. I wonder what’s going on
in there.
And then one day, I fell through the door. I leaned on the door and fell in and they thought I’d come to join. I was about 12, 13, 14 and there was
a girl there that I wanted to kiss, you know. And the woman who ran the club said, “Come in. We haven’t got any men. There are no men in here.”
So I said, oh, all right. And I thought could we do a play, we get a love scene and I’ll get to kiss any of this. So I said, OK, I’ll join. So that
was the reason I became an actor, unfortunately.
AMANPOUR: And that is the reason, right? That was it?
CAINE: That’s why I became an amateur actor and went on in my life to do something I love because I loved acting once I started doing it. And then
that’s what — that was one of the lucky things for me is to be able to do a job that I would do for nothing and I got paid for it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: That’s it for us. Join us again next time.
END