Panelists for the “Race, Slavery and Mass Incarceration” discussion at the New York State Bar Association's annual meeting urged audience members in attendance to better understand the history that's led to America's bloated incarceration rates, and to use that knowledge to take meaningful action.

The at-times emotional panel of Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, The Innocence Project's special counsel for new initiatives Chantá Parker, and the American Civil Liberties Union's deputy legal director Jeffery Robinson spoke Wednesday after a screening of the award-winning documentary “13th.” The film examines the history of the criminal justice system in America, taking its name from the amendment to the U.S. Constitution that outlawed slavery.

The breadth of experience among the panelists provided a range of reactions to the issues of race, criminal justice and history raised by the film.

Hilarie Bass, president of the American Bar Association and a co-president at Greenberg Traurig, served as moderator, and began the conversation focusing on mass incarceration's impact on communities.

Parker noted that half of black women in America have an incarcerated loved one. She pointed out throughout the hour-long discussion that the damage done by incarceration extends beyond the individuals behind bars.

“These are whole communities that are crushed, are oppressed by this system,” she said.

Robinson spoke passionately about what he sees as a failure by society to grapple with its past in a constructive way.

“I'm angry because none of this is new,” he said.

For him, the host of criminal justice reforms being discussed broadly, including bail and imprisonment for failure to pay fines and fees, will amount to so much “tinkering” if fundamental truths aren't addressed about how the today's criminal justice system came to be. He hoped watching the film would help create “cognitive dissonance” that unsettles audiences into action.

“It's at the point of cognitive dissonance that you're willing to do something different,” he said.

Clark, the lone prosecutor on the panel, said it was important for those involved in the criminal justice system—especially those who, like her, were there during the heyday of the criminal enforcement ramp-up in the 1980s and 1990s—to take ownership over their roles.

The district attorney spent a significant portion of her time talking about the steps her office took over the past two years to address her piece of the system. She noted her work setting up a number of new policies and departments in her office, including a prosecutor integrity division, a conviction review unit, and a program for community re-integration for those getting out of jail or prison.

“I think the most important thing that we have to understand is that each person that is accused is an individual, and as prosecutors we need to look at things that way,” she said.

She went on to encourage the defense bar to develop relationships with DA offices, and to help prosecutors “learn how to think outside the box” when it comes to solutions.

Likewise, members of the bar in attendance were encouraged to be open to hiring formerly incarcerated people. Their experience in the system and legal education, often self-taught, can lead to an exceptional set of skills once they get out, Robinson said.

“Somebody that is in desperate need—you give them a hand up, you give them an opportunity to prove themselves, and one of the things you're going to get is one of the most dedicated and loyal employees you have ever seen in your entire life,” he added.

On a larger level, the audience was encouraged to recognize that making significant change required the conversation and commitment to action to move from communities represented by the three black panel members into ones that resembled the overwhelmingly white audience. Failure to do so, according to Parker, would mean more decades passing with little change to show for it.

“I'm young, but I don't have the patience—I don't,” she said. “Until we can really start to come to the place where we say, this is a problem that's critical, that affects all of us, we're just going to continue to white-wash it and change it over.”