[applause] investing in our communities makes sense. It saves taxpayer money if we are consistent about it. And if we recognize that every child deserves opportunity, not just some, not just our own. [applause] what does not make sense is treating entire neighborhoods is little more than danger zones where we just surround them. We asked police to go in there and do the tough job of trying to contain the hopelessness when we are not willing to make the investment to help lift those communities out of hopelessness. That is not just a police problem. That is a societal problem. [applause] places like west philly or west baltimore or ferguson, missouri. They are part of america, too. They are not separate. They are part of america like anywhere else. The kids there are american kids. Its like your kids and my kids. Weve got to make sure boys and girls in those communities are loved and cherished and supported and nurtured and invested in and we have to have the same standards for those children as we have for our own children. [applause] if you are a parent, you know there are times when boys and girls will act out in school and the question is are we letting principals and parents deal with one set of kids and we call the police on another set of kids . That is not the right thing to do. [applause] weve got to make sure our juvenile Justice System remembers that kids are different. Dont just tag them as future criminals. Reach out to them as future citizens. [applause] even as we recognize that Police Officers to one of the toughest, bravest jobs around and we do everything in our power and as we do everything in our power to keep those Police Officers safe on the job, i have talked about this, we have to restore trust between the police and some of the communities they serve. [applause] a good place to start is making sure communities around the country adopt the recommendations from the task force i set up that included Law Enforcement but also included young people from new york and ferguson and they were able to arrive at a consensus around things like that her training,ection to make sure policing is more effective and accountable is also more unbiased. [applause] these are steps in the committee that will lead to fewer folks being arrested in the first place. It wont eliminate crime entirely. There will be crime and thats why the second thing we need to change is the courtroom. For nonviolent drug crimes, we need to lower longer mandatory minimum sentences or get rid of them entirely. [applause] give judges some discretion around nonviolent crimes so that potentially, we can steer a young person who has made a mistake in a better direction. We should pass a sentencing reform bill through congress this year. [applause] we need to ask prosecutors to use their discretion to seek the best punishment, the one that will be most effective instead of just the longest punishment. We should invest in alternatives to prison like drug courts and treatments and probation programs which ultimately can save taxpayers thousands of dollars per defendant each year. Even if we are locking up fewer people, even if we are reforming sentencing guidelines, as i said before, some criminals still deserve to go to jail as republican senator john cornyn has reminded us virtually all of the people incarcerated in our prisons will eventually, someday, be released. That is why the thirdplace we need reform is in the cellblock. On thursday, i will be the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. [applause] and and i am going to shine a spotlight on this issue because while the people in our prisons have made some mistakes and sometimes big mistakes, they are also americans. And we have to make sure that as they do their time, and payback their debt to society, that we are increasing the possibility that they can turn their lives around. [applause] that does not mean that we will turn everybodys life around. That does not mean there are not some hard cases. It does mean that we want to be in a position in which if somebody in the midst of imprisonment recognizes the errors of their ways, is in the process of reflecting about where they have been and where they should be going, weve got to make sure they are in a position to make a turn. Thats why we should not tolerate conditions in prison that have no place. In any civilized country [applause] we should not be tolerating overcrowding in prison. We should not be tolerating Gang Activity in prison. We should not be tolerating rape in present and we should not make jokes about it in our popular culture. These things are unacceptable. [applause] whats more, i have asked my attorney general to start a review of the over use of solitary confinement across american prisons. [applause] the social science shows an environment like that is often more likely to make inmates more alienated, more hostile, potentially more violent. Do we really think it makes sense to lock up so many people alone and tiny cells for 23 hours per day for months and is sometimes years at a time . That is not going to make us safer. That is not going to make us stronger. If those individuals are ultimately released, how are they ever going to adapt . Its not smart. Our prisons should be a place where we can train people for skills that can help them find a job, not train them to become more hardened criminals. [applause] i dont want to pretend like this is all easy. But some places are doing better than others. Montgomery county, maryland put a Job Training Center inside the prison walls to give folks a head start in thinking about what might you do otherwise than committing crime. Thats a good idea. Here is another good idea, one with high partisan support in congress lets reward prisoners with reduced sentence as if they complete programs that make them less likely to commit a repeat offense. [applause] lets invest in Innovative New approaches to link former president is with employers ]former prisoners with employers and help them keep on track. Lets follow the growing numbers of our states and cities and private companies who have decided to ban the box on job applications so that former prisoners who have done their time and are now trying to get straight with society have a decent shot in a job interview. [applause] if folks have served their time and they have reentered society, they should be able to vote. [applause] you know, communities that give our young people every shot, courts that are tough but fair prisons that recognize eventually the majority will be released and so seek to prepare these returning citizens to grab that Second Chance that is where we need to build. I want to add this we cannot ask our police or prosecutors or Prison Guards for our judges to bear the entire burden of containing and controlling problems that the rest of us are not facing up to and wont do something about. [applause] yes, we have to stand up to those who are determined to flash investments in our committees of any cause, cutting job training programs, cutting Affordable Housing programs, Cutting Community policing programs that is shortsighted. Those investments makers make our country strong. We got to invest in opportunity more than ever africanamerican man roughly 25 years ago has a 1 in 2 chance of turning his life around. We properly recognized this is a crisis. Right now, the unappointed rate among africanamericans is 9. 5 . What should we call that . It is a crisis and we have to be just as concerned about continuing to list Job Opportunities for young people. [applause] today i have been talking about the criminal Justice System but we have to recognize that its not something we can view in isolation. Any system that allows us to turn a blind eye to hopelessness and despair, thats not a Justice System, it is an inJustice System. That is an extension and a reflection of some broader decisions that we are making as a society. That has to change. That has to change. This is what the marches on washington, what the marches in selma new, what folks like julian bond new, what the marches in this room still no. Is that justice is not only the absence of oppression, it is the presence of opportunity. [applause] justice is giving every child a shot at a great education no matter what zip code they are born into. Justice is giving everyone willing to work for the chance at a good job with good wages no matter what their name is, what their skin color is, where they live. 50 years after the Voting Rights act, justice is protecting that right for every american. Justice is living up to the concrete that says i am my brothers keeper and my sisters keeper. Justices making sure every young person knows they are special and they are important and that their lives matter, not because they heard it in a hastag but because of the love they feel every ingle day. Not just love from their parents or neighborhood emma but love from police, love from politicians. Love from someone who is on the other side of the country but sees that young person is still important to me. [applause] that is what justice is. In the american tradition, and in the immigrant tradition of remaking ourselves, in the christian tradition that says none of us is without sin [applause] and all of us need redemption justice and redemption go handinhand. [applause] right before i came out here i met with four former president s, ex offenders. Two of them were africanamerican and one of them was latino and one of them was white. All of them had amazing stories. One of them dropped out of school when he was a young kid. Now he is making films about his experience in the prison system. One of them served 10 years in prison then got a job at five guys which is a tasty burger. [laughter] and they gave him an opportunity and he rose up and became a general manager there and now is doing antiviolence work in the community. [applause] one of them, the young latino man, he came out of prison and was given an opportunity to get trained on green jobs helping the environment but also gave him a marketable skill. He talked about how the way he is staying out of trouble. He just keeps on thinking about his two daughters. I can relate to that because you dont want to disappoint your daughters. You dont want to disappoint those baby girl so he says i go to work and i come home and i grab that little baby and get a kiss and thats keeping me focused. Than one of them was arrested six times before his 38th birthday. He was drinking, using drugs rack up dui and sentence after sentence and admits that the sentences he was getting for dui were not reflective of the trouble he was causing. It could have been worse. He spent so much time jogging in place in his cell that inmates nicknamed him the running man. He was literally going nowhere. He was running in place. Then somehow, jeff started examining his life and said this is not me. He decided to hold himself accountable and quit drinking and went to aa and met a recruiter from the Reentry Program at the Community College in philadelphia, enrolled in classes once he was released nature to show up every day, graduated summa cum laude, with a 3. 5 gpa and this fall he will graduate from Temple University with a major in criminal justice and a minor in social work and he volunteers helping him inmates get their lives back on track. [applause] its sort of a cliche he says we can do anything. Just two years ago, the running man ran his first marathon because he is going somewhere now. [applause] you never look at crossing the finish line, he says of his journey, you attack at putting one mile after the other. It takes steps. It takes steps. That is true for individuals its true for our nation. Sometimes i get in debates about how to think about progress or the lack of progress when it comes to issues of race and inequality in america. There are times when people say the president , hes too optimistic or hes not talking enough about how bad things are. Let me tell you something, i see what happens. My heart breaks when i see families impacted. I spend time with those families. I feel their grief. I see those young men on street corners and eventually in prisons and i think to myself, they could be me. The main difference between me and them is i had a more forgiving environment so that when i slipped up, when i made a mistake, i had a Second Chance and theyve got no margin for error. [applause] i know how hard things are for a lot of folks. But i also know that it takes steps and if we have the courage to take that first step then we take a second step in if we have the kurds to take the second step and suddenly we have taken 10 steps. The next thing you know, you have taken 100 steps and thats not just true for us as individuals but true for us as a nation. We are not perfect but we have the capacity to be more perfect, mile after mile, step after step, they pile up one after the other and pretty soon, that finish line starts getting insight and we are not where we were. We are in a better place because we had the courage to move forward. [applause] so we cannot ignore the problems we had but we cannot stop running the race. [applause] that is how you win the race. Thats how you fix a broken system. Thats how you change a country. The naacp understands that. [applause] think about the race you have run. Think about the race ahead. If we keep taking steps toward a more Perfect Union and close the gap between who we are and who we want to be, america will move forward. There is nothing we cannot do. Thank you, god bless you, god bless the United States of america. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] heres a look. Speaker boehner, president obama is visiting a prison today during the week. I have long believed there needed to be reform. Thats what are things that you differ on . I am not the expert. I think it is time we reviewed the process. Tomorrow what the senate and the house plan to do about it. And why they approved austerity measures. Coming up, the Arms Control Association discussing the nuclear agreement. And then remarks on youth activism. Later the finance committee holding a hearing on potential fraud. Earlier this week announced new horizons had success only flown by the dwarf planet pluto and captured detailed photographs. You can watch the briefing lies at 1 p. M. Eastern here on cspan. This weekend, two Major Political events from iowa. We are the only place you can watch or listen to these events in their entirety. We will be live for the Iowa Democratic party hall of fame dinner. It will mark the first time all five Democratic Candidates shared the same stage. Then we will be live in a names for the family leadership summit were nine leading republican candidates were scheduled to speak. John boehner and nancy pelosi talked about the briefing. Here is a look. It blows my mind the americans would agree to end the bands. The sanctions are working at bringing iran to its knees. We are going to fight a deal that is wrong for our country. Two days ago a Historic Nuclear Agreement was announced by the p5 plus one. That is the product of years of leadership on the part of president obama. I have closely examined this document and it will have my strong support. Members are reading the document. This is the document, plus the annexes very important. I am very proud of the careful attention our members are giving to the joint comprehensive plan of action. Congratulations to president obama, two leaders of the p5 plus one, to all of the country. I want to commend secretary kerry for his leadership. We had experienced leaders. One of the foremost authorities on nuclear technology. Everybody knew they were dealing with people of knowledge and knowing the possibilities. The president has been clear. A nuclear iran is unacceptable to the United States, to the world, and in particular, to israel. Disagreement is about intensifying our vigilance over every aspect of the Iranian Nuclear program. We had no illusions. I would say distrust and verify. Next, a panel of former government and Security Officials to discuss attentional challenges of the iran nuclear agreement, including its impact on the relationship with israel and saudi arabia. This is an hour and a half. Her. Good good morning. Welcome to the Arms Control Association briefing on the p 5 plus one Iran Nuclear Deal injuries the outcomes, implementation and verification. Im the executive corrector. We are an in depep dent nonpartisan. By the worlds dangerous weapons. We organized to discuss p5 plus one which is the most complex and conch sequential which began 70 years ago today with the first atomic bomb which was detonated in new mexico. Over the period of time, we sought to identify policy solutions to address the many different challenges on this issue so that the negotiators can help arrive at and agreement. And our analysis looking at the documents which is over 100 pages, quite substantial, is that it can effectively block iran on their weapons and Weapons Program for more than a generation. And thats a view shared from nonproliferation Security Experts and we believe it will be a netplus for nuclear non proliferation, the effort to stop Nuclear Weapons. Congress has 60 days to review this agreement and we believe that each and every member need to take a look at this agreement and get the answers to their questions and consider the benefits and the alternatives. And so to help contribute to this date, we have gathered three topnotch experts to discuss the agreement. Kelsey davenport and she has b