America’s mass incarceration system: Freedom’s next frontier
As the nation examines details about how a minor traffic stop of a young black woman in a Texas town ended in her death in a jail cell three days later, major questions again focus on the racial bias of the U.S. judicial system. This was the topic President Barack Obama tackled head-on in his speech to the NAACP national convention last week.
Obama delivered the equivalent of a Hail Mary completion when he called for sweeping judicial reform of the nation’s mass-incarceration policies. He laid out the tragic costs in lost opportunity of America’s carceral state. It marked a progressive turn for this president.
*The president’s “mass incarceration” speech was remarkable, for two simple reasons. First, he used the term “mass incarceration.” This may seem like a low bar for such an urgent policy issue, but it has been set by the obstacle-ridden legislative government, within which the Obama administration has had to operate.
Second, he eloquently explained the opportunity costs of America’s incarceration sickness. For the $80 billion a year that the United States spends on mass imprisonment, Obama explained (and many have now cited) the nation could instead fund such vital initiatives as pre-kindergarten for all children ages 3 to 4, forgive tuition costs for all U.S. public universities or double the salary of every public high school teacher in the nation.
*Yet even though Obama is late, he is welcome at the end-mass-incarceration party. In this last quarter of his presidency, Obama is increasingly showing signs that he is taking cues from his left. He has spoken directly and powerfully about race. He has described the structural and systemic nature of racism in our nation. He has used his executive powers to back up some of what he says, and he is also talking about policies that could help move forward aspects of his more progressive agenda.
These are positions that the president’s critics on the left have been pushing him to embrace since he took office. Although this Obama may have been a long time coming, his arrival is surely a victory for those who have been calling for criminal-justice reform."
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/07/23/americas-mass-incarceration-system-freedoms-next-frontier/
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