President Obama to push for reduced prison sentences

[Cali_Democrat]

After a year of racial turmoil across America, including riots against police violence in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, President Barack Obama plans to push for reform of mandatory sentencing guidelines that have disproportionately put African-Americans in jail on extended terms for nonviolent crimes.

At a gathering of black leaders at the 106th Annual NAACP Convention in Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon, Obama will make his pitch for “comprehensive juvenile and criminal justice reform that makes our system, fairer, smarter, and more cost-effective while keeping the American people safe and secure.”

The policy address is bookended by the president’s announcement Monday of 46 commutations of sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and by his planned visit to a federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, on Thursday.

In recent months, a coalition from across the political spectrum has emerged in favor of moving away from “tough on crime” rules that have bloated prisons with minor offenders over the last few decades, and that made it difficult for them to get a job and return to society upon release.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/obama-mandatory-sentence-reform-120102.html?hp=t4_r

[Gothmog]

1. The war on drugs was a bust and these sentences need to be reduced