President Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison yesterday. Obama said it was a good chance to talk about prison reform, and to catch up with so many former congressmen.
. . . the solution is not to toss youthful offenders into jail or prisons. We long ago recognized alcoholism to be a disease, and abondoned efforts to treat alcoholics simply by locking them up.
Unless we maintain correctional institutions of such character that they create respect for law and government instead of breeding resentment and a desire for revenge, we are meeting lawlessness with stupidity and making a travesty of justice.
Keeping them behind bars does little to reduce crime, but it does a lot to tear apart families, our prisons and our jails are now our mental health institutions.
You have an electorate [in America] that wants to see people who are not tough on crime.
As a state legislator, I had worked with Republicans and Democrats to pass a number of bills, including some related to higher education and juvenile justice; I'd created what would become San Antonio's largest book drive and literacy campaign.
Jail is no place for a young fellow. There's no advancement.
It's time to end the era of mass incarceration. We need a true national debate about how to reduce our prison population.
I have, ever since the first day of my campaign, called for criminal justice reform.
I feel like you don't have to go through jail, that's not part of bein' a man.
