“Gun violence is a public health issue,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott, setting the tone for a charged panel about mass incarceration and systemic failure. “You cannot solve a public health issue without having a public health-based approach.” That belief shaped “The Next Step on Criminal Justice,“ a timely conversation on the Global Black Economic Forum stage during the 2025 ESSENCE Festival of Culture.
Moderator Errol Louis, host of “Inside City Hall” on NY1, led the discussion with Scott, Dr. Roger Mitchell, president of Howard University Hospital and a leading forensic pathologist; civil rights attorney and Life After Justice founder Jarrett Adams; and Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, the first Black woman to represent New Jersey’s 10th District — each of whom made it plain: this is about health, justice and survival.
Mayor Scott broke down Baltimore’s $50 million investment in community violence intervention. “We pay people who used to shoot people to go and interrupt that violence themselves,” he explained. “It’s not just me… It’s the community, it’s the city of Baltimore, everyone working in that ecosystem.”
Keeping interrupters independent from police, he added, is critical: “Even some folks in the media, they would never ask me to unveil who an undercover police officer is because of their credibility and their credibility in the street. My violence intervention workers need that same accountability to their partners and their relationships.”
Mitchell warned that neglect inside jails creates a ripple effect. “Prisons and jails are just hospitals with security concerns,” he said. Under Medicaid’s Inmate Exclusion Policy, even those awaiting trial lose access to preventive care.
“One of the biggest things that Medicaid has brought to this country is the electronic medical record. How many of you can look on your phone, look at an app and see your medical record, right?” he said. “That is a function of the investment done by [the] government and Medicaid that you can’t do if you’re in jail or prison.
Adams, who spent nearly 10 years in prison before being exonerated, brought the crisis home by recounting the story of a former client who lost her baby due to medical neglect while incarcerated. “We don’t deal with post-traumatic stress. We’re dealing with persistent traumatic stress,” he said.
Through his nonprofit, Life After Justice, Adams is training therapists to support individuals who have been formerly incarcerated. “Grandma, auntie, uncle, now, they become the therapist to the people who are getting back into society, and it is a wing of the criminal justice system that is continuing to perpetuate the cycles of violence,” he said.
Congresswoman McIver joined toward the end of the conversation, sharing her arrest story at an ICE facility she visited for congressional oversight in May. “I been charged with three counts of felony where I can face up to 17 years in prison, for simply doing my job by the federal government,” she said.
“I always tell people, don’t worry about me, because at the end of the day, I’m good. They’re not gonna steal my joy, they’re not gonna steal my will to work for the people that have elected me.”
Each panelist closed with a call to action. Mitchell urged states to track deaths in custody: “Violence is a symptom of a system.” Adams challenged communities to “find the people who are closest to the blaze” and “provide them with the water that they need to put these blazes out.”
Mayor Scott said it clearly: “We need to fight.