"Debating criminal justice reforms to improve rehabilitation and lower recidivism" PBS NewsHour 8/7/2014
Excerpt
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Across the U.S., as inmate populations keep growing, calls to address prison crowding, conditions and other problems continue to be heard.
Just this week, the Justice Department issued a scathing report on abuse of teenage inmates at New York’s Riker’s Island. It spoke of a — quote — “culture of violence that encouraged beatings and excessive use of solitary confinement.”
In California, state officials are under federal court orders aimed at reducing severe overcrowding of prisons. And U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is pushing to shorten prison terms for many nonviolent offenders.
On the NewsHour recently, he cited a fundamental unfairness in drug sentencing.
ERIC HOLDER, Attorney General: If you are basing a sentence on something other than the conduct of the person who was involved, and the person’s record, if you’re looking, for instance, at factors of what educational level the person has received, what neighborhood the person comes from…
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Which, to be clear, some states are doing already.
ERIC HOLDER: They are, right. And using that as a predictor, though, of what — how likely this person, this individual, is going to be a recidivist, I’m not at all certain that I’m comfortable with that.
JEFFREY BROWN: The concerns have sparked bipartisan efforts.
In the Senate, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky and Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey are focused on several issues, including drugs and racial disparities in prison.
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