Bill Clinton expresses regret about criminal justice law he signed

“Mass incarceration makes our country worse off and we need to do something about it”, Obama said. The White House has posted a video of conversation between the president and David Simon, writer of the HBO television show, “The Wire”, in which Obama discusses the massive trend toward incarceration, for even nonviolent drug offenders, which began in the 1990s.

Here are some of his most poignant remarks, reflecting the ways in which he wants this unjust system to change. “We keep more people behind bars than the top 35 European countries combined”.

President Obama on Tuesday began rolling out a plan for reforming a criminal justice system he says is “skewed by race and by wealth” but is ripe for change at the hands of political leaders.

Obama specifically pointed to the damage caused by excessively long, disproportionate sentences, particularly for drug offenders: “In far too many cases, the punishment simply does not fit the crime”. You have to be held accountable and make amends.

Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project has advanced the idea of sentencing maximums, which cap sentences at 20 years except for the most extreme instances. “You don’t owe a life’s sentence”.

In recent years, as the crime rate has dropped, long drug sentences have come under increasing scrutiny and downward trends already are taking shape.

The $80 billion Mr Obama referred to is America’s annual corrections budget. “We are not to let our guard down”.

In a city where African Americans represent more than 85 percent of the population, it hardly need be said how this affects Detroit. They make up 60 percent of our inmates. Among white men, that number is one in 214. “The bottom line is that in too many places, black boys and black men, Latino boys and Latino men, experience being treated differently under the law”.

“The eyes of more Americans have been opened to this truth, partly because of cameras, partly because of tragedy, partly because the statistics can not be ignored”, he said. Many come from broken homes, grow up on urban poverty plantations run by Democrats and turn to drugs and other crimes, both violent and nonviolent, because that is what they know. I spend time with those families, and feel their grief. “Either way, he’s now in the midst of this push that we’re waiting to see how it all plays out”. “Investing in our communities makes sense”.

More than just a speech: Nonetheless, the speech was an important step forward for the president – and just one of the notable developments that have happened this week.

More hope for kids means fewer adults winding up in the criminal justice system. They are so quickly written off as criminals, murderers, or drains on society. “Reach out to them as future citizens”.

According to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, which hosted the panel, there are now 2.2 million people in US prisons, which is a 500% increase over the last 30 years.

“The people in our prisons have made some mistakes, and sometimes big mistakes”. “We should not be tolerating overcrowding in prison“.

“We had gang warfare on the streets”. “By that it is an extension and reflection of broader decisions that we’re making as a society. That’s no joke. These things are unacceptable”. He raised the widespread use of solitary confinement and directed Attorney General Loretta Lynch to review its overuse nationwide.

To strong applause before the NAACP on Tuesday, the president said, “Our [minority] communities are safer, thanks to fearless police officers and hardworking prosecutors who put… violent criminals in jail”.

“How are they ever going to adapt?” he asked.

Quite frankly, in the federal system, often times the person who’s in federal prison, they are the drug dealers, the distributers, the pushers, as oppose to someone who had an addiction to a controlled (substance). Thursday, he will become the first sitting US president to visit a federal prison.

When Martin asked Books about the focus of the NAACP over the next 365 days, Brooks explained, “We have to equip an army of activists to actually bring about reform”. “It is the presence of opportunity”.