Weekly Address: President Obama – Building a Fairer and More Effective Criminal Justice System

April 23, 2016 JanF Editors' Choice, From the White House 9

The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, the President discussed his continued efforts to build a fairer and more equitable criminal justice system. The Department of Justice has designated the week of April 24-30 as National Reentry Week, during which the Administration will highlight how strong reentry programs can make our communities safer. In support of National Reentry Week, the President said his Administration will take additional steps to ensure applicants with a criminal history have a fair shot when competing for a federal job.

Additionally, the White House will call on businesses to commit to hiring those who have served their time, and it will issue a report on the economic costs of high incarceration rates in this country.The President emphasized that this is about more than what makes economic and practical sense – it’s about ensuring we live up to our Nation’s ideals.

Transcript: Weekly Address: Building a Fairer and More Effective Criminal Justice System

Remarks of President Barack Obama as Delivered
Weekly Address, The White House, April 23, 2016

Hello, everybody. Today, there are some 2.2 million people behind bars in America. Millions more are on parole or probation. All told, we spend 80 billion taxpayer dollars each year to keep people locked up. Many are serving unnecessarily long sentences for non-violent crimes. Almost 60 percent have mental health problems. Almost 70 percent were regular drug users. And as a whole, our prison population is disproportionately black and Latino.

Now, plenty of people should be behind bars. But the reason we have so many more people in prison than any other developed country is not because we have more criminals. It’s because we have criminal justice policies, including unfair sentencing laws, that need to be reformed.

We know that simply locking people up doesn’t make communities safer. It doesn’t deal with the conditions that lead people to criminal activity in the first place, or to return to prison later. After all, there’s evidence that a 10 percent increase in the high school graduation rate leads to a nearly 10 percent decrease in arrest rates. A ten percent wage increase for men without a college degree lowers crime by as much as 20 percent. And a growing body of research suggests that the longer people stay in jail, the more likely they are to commit another crime once they get out.

Here’s why this matters. Every year, more than 600,000 people are released from prison. We need to ensure that they are prepared to reenter society and become productive, contributing members of their families and communities – and maybe even role models.

That’s why we’ve been working to make our criminal justice system smarter, fairer, less expensive, and more effective. This week, the Department of Justice will highlight how strong reentry programs can make communities safer. My Administration will announce new actions that will build on the progress we’ve already made. We’ll release more details about how we are taking steps to ensure that applicants with a criminal history have a fair shot to compete for a federal job. We’re issuing a new report that details the economic costs of our high rates of incarceration. And we’re calling on businesses to commit to hiring returning citizens who have earned a second chance.

These are just a few of the steps we’re taking. But there’s much more to do. Disrupting the pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails. Addressing the disparities in the application of criminal justice, from arrest rates to sentencing to incarceration. Investing in alternatives to prison, like drug courts and mental health treatment. Helping those who have served their time get the support they need to become productive members of society.

Good people from both sides of the aisle and across all sectors are coming together on this issue. From businesses that are changing their hiring practices, to law enforcement that’s improving community policing, we’re seeing change. Now we need a Congress that’s willing to send a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill to my desk. This isn’t just about what makes economic and practical sense. It’s about making sure that we live up to our ideals as a nation.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Bolding added.

~

9 Comments

  1. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on National Re-Entry Week

    Under the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice has taken major steps to make our criminal justice system more fair, more efficient, and more effective at reducing recidivism and helping formerly incarcerated individuals contribute to their communities. An important part of that task is preparing those who have paid their debt to society for substantive opportunities beyond the prison gates, and addressing obstacles to successful reentry that too many returning citizens encounter. […]

    To encourage and highlight this important work, the Justice Department is designating the week of April 24-30, 2016, as National Reentry Week. During this week, we are asking the Bureau of Prisons to coordinate reentry events at their facilities across the country – from job fairs, to practice interviews, to mentorship programs, to events for children of incarcerated parents – designed to help prepare inmates for release. We have also asked each U.S. Attorney’s Office to coordinate reentry events, including meetings between local reentry stakeholders, reentry court proceedings, employer roundtables or other events designed to raise awareness about the importance of reentry work. We are encouraging federal partners and grantees to work closely with stakeholders like federal defenders, legal aid providers, and other partners across the country to increase the impact of this effort. And Justice Department and Administration leadership will travel during National Reentry Week in support of these events.

    • This is so important! Thanks for this post, Jan. It is abysmally stupid to criminalize people who use drugs. I haven’t noticed anyone being arrested for using crystal meth, the scourge of the poorer states.

      If a good reentry program is created for people coming out of prison for nonviolent offenses, there will be a better society all around. People who have jobs that satisfy them generally don’t have time to rob banks.

  2. Secretary of State John Kerry at the signing of the Paris climate accord:

    Paris was a turning point in the fight against climate change.

    Paris marked the moment when the world finally decided to heed the ever-rising mountain of evidence that had been piling up for years. It marked the moment that we put to rest once and for all the debate over whether climate change is real – and began instead to galvanize our focus on how, as a global community, we are going to address the irrefutable reality that nature is changing at an increasingly rapid pace due to our own choices.

    For sure, the agreement that we reached in Paris is the strongest, most ambitious global climate pact ever negotiated. But the power of this agreement is not that it, in and of itself, guarantees that we will actually hold the increase of temperature to the target of 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees centigrade. In fact, it does not and we know that, we acknowledge it. The power of this agreement is the opportunity that it creates. The power is the message that it sends to the marketplace. It is the unmistakable signal that innovation, entrepreneurial activity, the allocation of capital, the decisions that governments make, all of this is what we now know definitively is what is going to define the new energy future – a future that is already being defined but even yet to be discovered. The power of this agreement is what it is going to do to unleash the private sector, and it is already doing to set in pace the global economy on a new path for smart, responsible, sustainable development.

    Video Link.

    • Letter from President Obama on the Paris Agreement:

      Today is Earth Day — the last one I’ll celebrate as President. Looking back over the past seven years, I’m hopeful that the work we’ve done will allow my daughters and all of our children to inherit a cleaner, healthier, and safer planet. But I know there is still work to do.

      That’s why, today, the United States will join about 170 other countries in signing the Paris Agreement, a historic deal to reduce carbon emissions across the globe.

      When Secretary of State John Kerry stands with other countries to support this agreement, we’ll advance a plan that prioritizes the health of our planet and our people. And we’ll come within striking distance of enacting the Paris Agreement years earlier than anyone expected.

      This is important because the impact of climate change is real. Last summer, I visited Alaska and stood at the foot of a disappearing glacier. I saw how the rising sea is eating away at shorelines and swallowing small towns. I saw how changes in temperature mean permafrost is thawing and the tundra is burning. So we’ve got to do something about it before it’s too late.

      As the world’s second-largest source of climate pollution, America has a responsibility to act. The stakes are enormous — our planet, our children, our future. That’s true not just here in America, but all over the world. No one is immune.

      That’s why, when I ran for this office, I promised I’d work with anyone — across the aisle or on the other side of the planet — to combat this threat. It’s why we brought together scientists, entrepreneurs, businesses, and religious organizations to tackle this challenge together. It’s why we set the first-ever national fuel efficiency standards for trucks and set new standards for cars. It’s why we made the biggest investment in clean energy in U.S. history. It’s why we put forward a plan to limit carbon pollution from existing power plants. And it’s why in Paris, we rallied countries all over the world to establish a long-term framework to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions — the first time so many countries had committed to ambitious, nationally determined climate targets.

      Now, we’re building on that momentum. When all is said and done, today will be the largest one-day signing event in the history of the UN.

      Thanks to this agreement, we can be more confident that we’ll leave our children a planet worthy of their promise.

      That’s what this is all about. And that’s why today, America is leading the fight against climate change.

      President Barack Obama

      The link is to a Medium post by Senior Advisor to President Obama Brian Deese on the Paris accord and what it means.

  3. In the News: Oklahoma votes to revoke medical license of doctors who perform abortions …

    An Oklahoma bill that could revoke the license of any doctor who performs an abortion has headed to the governor, with opponents saying the measure in unconstitutional and promising a legal battle against the cash-strapped state if it is approved. […]

    Under the bill, doctors who perform abortions would risk losing their medical licenses. Exemptions would be given for those who perform the procedure for reasons including protecting the mother or removing a miscarried fetus. […]

    The lobbying group and several other abortion rights organizations have promised court challenges if the bill is enacted.

    Supporters of the bill said it will help protect the sanctity of life.

    “If we take care of morality,” bill supporter David Brumbaugh, a Republican, said during deliberations, “God will take care of the economy.”

    I’m sure he will.

    • In Missouri, they are not so trusting that their god will take care of the economy:

      The battle over religious freedom and LGBT rights has moved from Arizona and Mississippi to Missouri. Conservatives there are backing an amendment to the state Constitution that would protect certain people — clergy, for instance — who refuse to take part in same-sex marriages.

      But the measure has run into some unexpected — and unexpectedly stiff — opposition, from a longtime ally of the religious right: the business community. […]

      Where [Missouri Baptist Convention Executive Director John] Yeats sees a threat to “religious liberty,” Joe Reardon sees a threat to commerce.

      “We’re talking about profitability; we’re talking about jobs,” says Reardon, who runs the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.

      The biggest business groups in the state have locked arms against the amendment, Reardon says. Hundreds of individual businesses have piled on.

      “It’s every sort of business in Kansas City coming together in common cause around this. And that’s been remarkable to me,” he says.

      Some of the companies have long stood for LGBT rights. But Stuart Hinds, who runs the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America, says the current level of massed business support is something new.

      “It’s a phenomenal shift, and it’s incredible to see it happen so quickly,” Hinds says. […]

      Don Hinkle of the Missouri Baptist Convention points out, conservative Christians have long worked hand in glove with the Missouri Chamber of Commerce.

      “We’ve been on the same side of issues for so many times for so long,” says Hinkle, the MBC’s director of public policy. “And for them to think that our freedom is for sale, much less the gospel of Jesus Christ is for sale, to us … it’s heartbreaking.”

    • Outrageous! But then, NOTHING would surprise me about the state of Oklahoma, from which I departed thankfully 51 years ago and have not set foot in since.

      There are times when I wish certain states really would secede. How we will ever bring them into normal reality I do not know.

      • I hope their governor realizes that a “cash-strapped state” would be foolish to rely on divine intervention to pay for the defense of an indefensible law such as the one that has been passed there. But never underestimate those whose brain cells have been replaced by bible verses. Religious extremists have done so much damage to our country – I keep hoping that something will shake people out of their complacency yet they continue to elect people who want no part of the U.S. Constitution.

  4. From the campaign trail – in Pennsylvania with Hillary Clinton:

    She began by attending a community discussion at St. Paul’s Baptist Church on police conduct that included former Attorney General Eric Holder, Geneva Reed-Veal, the mother of Sandra Bland, and other families affected by the actions of law enforcement. During the discussion, Reed-Veal recalled the actions of police officers that took the life of her daughter. Clinton vowed to work with law enforcement to change policies, demilitarize police forces, and improve police training. She said that she was willing to work with anyone to provide solutions saying, “They’re asking us to be there for them. I will do everything I can imagine. I want these women and so many other family members to hold me accountable for everything I can possibly do, because it is wrong”.

    Hillary Clinton Mothers of the Movement Gun Violence Town Hall Philadelphia, PA

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