incarceration. it shows if you cut in half the number of people sent to prison for those drug crimes. for those convicted of property crimes, look at what happens. that would remove and reduce the inmate population by 10%. you reduce the number of people behind bars for all nonviolent offenses america could cut the prison population by 23%. that s a lot of change. there s been a lot of movement here. is there political will to make any of this happen? joining us now, a very special guest brian a stevenson, founder and executive director of equal justice, nyu professor at the school of law and he went viral with 2 million views. an honor to have you here tonight. thank you. great to be with you. is there a political will on this issue now?
young man finds his entire future taken away by excessive mandatory minimums. we want to help people work and vote, we have to fix the over criminalization problem. we have the challenge of over criminalization, of over incarceration, and over sentencing. the so-called tough on crime politics have raised a generation of legislators who wanted to outdo each other in adding defining crimes and punishment ballooning activities now newly considered criminal and we ve seen a generation of prosecutors facing pressure to always seek the maximum penalty. this may sound like a broad diagnosis. how do you break out the problem to challenge it and change it. the urban institute, a think tank devoted to civil rights, has a way to show how different policies can alter the mass incarceration. it would reduce the prison population 7%.
that s drugs. the topic that everyone has focused on. look at this. if we cut in half the sentences for those convicted of property crimes, look at what happens. that would remove and reduce the inmate population by 10%. you reduce the number of people behind bars for all nonviolent offenses america could cut the prison population by 23%. that s a lot of change. there s been a lot of movement here. is there political will to make any of this happen? joining us now, a very special guest brian a stevenson, founder and executive director of equal justice, nyu professor at the school of law and he went viral with 2 million views. an honor to have you here tonight. thank you. great to be with you. is there a political will on this issue now? i hope so. we are experiencing a political moment unlike anything we have seen in the last 40 years. i think it can t be stressed
disparate results, subject to stricter policing, stop and frisk, and harsher penalties for the same offenses committed by other americans. to a degree the war on drugs is certainly also a driver of this problem. our prison population hasek mroeded since president nixon first declared war on drugs in the 70s but this problem, this mass incarceration is not just from drugs. as some states legalize marijuana and some republicans in congress talk about rolling back those mandatory minimums, there are reformers noting that even changing those laws wouldn t remove the u.s. from its position as the highest incarceration rate nation of any democracy in the world. a recent article in the new york times says even without its many inmates convicted of drug charges, the u.s. still leads the world in imprisoning people. a true challenge means track willing problems that run deeper than the drug war itself. we need to recognize that
to a degree the war on drugs is certainly also a driver of this problem. our prison population hasek mroeded since president nixon first declared war on drugs in the 70s but this problem, this mass incarceration is not just from drugs. as some states legalize marijuana and some republicans in congress talk about rolling back those mandatory minimums, there are reformers noting that even changing those laws wouldn t remove the u.s. from its position as the highest incarceration rate nation of any democracy in the world. a recent article in the new york times says even without its many inmates convicted of drug charges, the u.s. still leads the world in imprisoning people. a true challenge means track willing problems that run deeper than the drug war itself. we need to recognize that young people make mistakes. and we should not live in a world of les miserables where a