President Barack Obama is leading a drive for a fairer and more equitable criminal justice system. He wants a federal review of solitary confinement, voting rights restored to former felons, and Congress to pass a sentencing reform bill by year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn far too many cases, the punishment simply doesn\u2019t fit the \u201cIf you are a low-level drug dealer, or you violate your “There’s a long history of inequity in the criminal justice \u2013 Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) July President Obama, as part of his week-long campaign on criminal He said the criminal justice system disproportionately affects \u201cThe bottom line is that in too many places, black boys and He called for voting rights to be restored to felons who have BREAKING: President Obama Says Felons Who Served Their Time \u2013 Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July Most mandatory minimum sentencing laws are applied largely to Both Republicans and Democrats recognize that the criminal Obama also said he had asked the attorney general to start a Obama told the NAACP audience that the $80 billion criminal Obama\u2019s speech was delivered a day after he commuted<\/a> the sentences of 46 nonviolent drug Obama will visit the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution <\/p>\n Via RT<\/a>.\u00a0This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Barack Obama is leading a drive for a fairer and more equitable criminal justice system. He wants a federal review of solitary confinement, voting rights restored to former felons, and Congress to pass a sentencing reform bill by year\u2019s end. \u201cIn far too many cases, the punishment simply doesn\u2019t fit the crime,\u201d Obama told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,1616],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-165864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-latest-news","8":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ncrime,<\/em>\u201d Obama told an audience of 3,300 at the National
\nAssociation for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP)
\nconvention in Philadelphia on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\nparole, you owe some debt to society. But you don\u2019t owe 20 years.
\nYou don\u2019t owe a life sentence<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\nsystem in America” – President Obama at the NAACP convention<\/p>\n
\n14, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\njustice reform, said America spends $80 billion a year to keep
\n2.2 million people incarcerated, adding that American taxpayers
\npick up the tab for a criminal justice system that \u201cremains
\nparticularly skewed by race and by wealth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\ncommunities of color, with African-Americans and Latinos making
\nup 30 percent of the general population, but accounting for 60
\npercent of the prison population. He said one in every 35
\nAfrican-American men and one in every 88 Latino men is serving
\ntime. Among white men, the number is one in 214.<\/p>\n
\nblack men, Latino boys and Latino men experience being treated
\ndifferently under the law,<\/em>\u201d he said.<\/a><\/p>\n
\nserved their sentences, a ban on employers\u2019 asking job candidates
\nabout past convictions, and for the reduction or discarding of
\nmandatory minimum sentences.<\/p>\n\n
\nShould Be Able To Vote WATCH LIVE http:\/\/t.co\/eAVpgSwHcp<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/sumPcyK5VL<\/a><\/p>\n
\n14, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\ndrug offences and require binding prisons terms of a specific
\nlength, depriving judges of the ability to give lighter sentences
\ntaking into consideration the circumstances of the crime. Such
\nlaws have caused federal and state prison populations to soar,
\nleading to overcrowding, higher costs to taxpayers, and cuts to
\nlaw enforcement budgets.<\/p>\n
\njustice system is in dire need of reform, and the White House is
\nbacking a bipartisan bill that would slash mandatory minimum
\nsentences for non-violent offenders. The current proposal would
\nreduce mandatory life sentences to 20 years \u2013 effectively cutting
\nlife sentences in half from the current average of 40 years.<\/p>\n
\nreview of the overuse of solitary confinement in prisons, where
\ninmates are held in a cell for 23 hours per day. He said social
\nscience shows that this makes inmates more alienated, more
\nhostile and potentially more violent. He also advocated more job
\ntraining programs inside prison walls.<\/p>\n
\njustice budget could be better spent on universal pre-school for
\nevery three- and four-year-old, doubling teachers\u2019 salaries,
\neliminating tuition at public colleges and universities, job
\ntraining programs, research and development, and financing new
\nroads, bridges and airports. The suggestion was met by applause.<\/p>\n
\noffenders \u2014 the most commutations a president has issued on a
\nsingle day in at least four decades. Some offenders were serving
\nsentences that have undergone revision, and in some cases they
\nwere serving a decade longer than someone who was convicted of
\nthe same crime today. The majority of those receiving clemency
\nhad been found guilty of crimes involving crack and cocaine,
\nwhile two involved marijuana cases. Tens of thousands of inmates
\nwho have applied for clemency remain waiting, however.<\/p>\n
\noutside Oklahoma City on Thursday, the first visit to a federal
\nprison by a sitting US president.
\n<\/p>\n