Aspect of American Life that remains particularly skewed. By race and by wealth. A source of inequity that has ripple effects on families and on communities and ultimately on our nation. That is our criminal Justice System. This is not a new topic. I know sometimes folks discover these things like they just happened. Theres a long history of inequity in the criminal Justice System in america. When i was in the state legislature in illinois we worked to make sure that we had videotaping of interrogations because there were some problems there. We set up racial profiling laws to prevent the kind of bias in traffic stops that too many people experience. Since my First Campaign i have talked about how in too many cases our criminal Justice System ends up being a pipeline from underfunded inadequate schools to overcrowded jails. What has changed, though is that in recent years, the eyes of more americans have been opened to the truth. Partly because cameras, partly because of tragedy, partly because the statistics cannot be ignored. We cant close our eyes anymore. And the good news and this is truly good news is that good people of all political persuasion are starting to think we need to do something about this. So lets look at the statistics. The United States is home to 5 of the worlds population but 25 of the worlds prisoners. Think about that. Our incarceration rate is four times higher than chinas. We keep more people behind bars than the top 35 European Countries combined. And it hasnt always been the case this huge explosion in incarceration rates. In 1980 there were 500,000 people behind bars in america. Half a Million People in 1980. I was in college in 1980. Many of you were not born in 1980. Thats okay. I remember 1980. 500,000. Today, there are 2. 2 million. It has quadrupled. Since 1980. Our prison population has doubled in the last two decades alone. Now, we need to be honest. There are a lot of folks who belong in prison. If were going to deal with this problem, and the inequities involved, then we also have to speak honestly. There are some folks who need to be in jail. They may have had terrible things happen to them in their lives. We hold out the hope for redemption but theyve done some bad things. Murderers, predators, rapists, gang leaders, drug kingpins. We need some of those folks behind bars. Our communities are safer thanks to Brave Police Officers and hardworking prosecutors who put those violent criminals in jail. And the studies show that up to a certain point, tougher prosecutors and stiffer sentences for these violent offenders contributed to the decline in Violent Crime over the last few decades. Although the science also indicates that you get a point of diminishing returns. But it is important for us to recognize that violence in our communities is serious and that historically, in fact the Africanamerican Community oftentimes was underpoliced rather than overpoliced. Folks were very interested in containing the Africanamerican Community so it couldnt leave segregated areas but within the the last few decades, we have also locked up more and more nonviolent drug offenders than ever before for longer than ever before. And that is the real reason our prison population is so high. In far too many cases, the punishment simply does not fit the crime. If you are a low level drug dealer or you violate your parole, you owe some debt to society. You have to be held accountable. And make amends. But you dont owe 20 years. You dont owe a life sentence. Thats disproportionate to the price that should be paid. And by the way, the taxpayers are picking up the tab for that price. Every year we spend 80 billion to keep folks incarcerated. 80 billion. Just put that into perspective. For 80 billion we could have universal preschool for every 3yearold and 4yearold in america. Thats what 80 billion buys. For 80 billion, we could double the salary of every High School Teacher in america. For 80 billion, we could finance new roads and new bridges, new airports job Training Programs research and development. Im about to get into a big budget debate in washington what i couldnt do with 80 billion. Its a lot of money. For what we spend to keep everyone locked up for one year we could eliminate tuition for every single one of our Public College students. As republican senator and president ial candidate rand paul has said and to his credit hes been consistent on this issue. Imprisoning large numbers of nonviolent drug offenders for long periods of time costs the tax payers money without making them any safer. Roughly onethird of the Justice Departments budget now goes toward incarceration. Onethird. There are outstanding Public Servants at our Justice Department starting with our outstanding attorney general, loretta lynch. We have some great prosecutors here today. And they do outstanding work so many of them but every dollar they have to spend keeping nonviolent drug offenders in prison is a dollar they cant spend going after drug kingpins or tracking down terrorists or hiring more police and giving them the resources that would allow them to do a more effective job of community policing. Then of course there are the costs that cant be measured in dollars and cents. Because the statistics on who gets incarcerated show that by a wide margin, it disproportionately impacts communities of color. Africanamericans, latinos make up 30 of our population. They make up 60 of our inmates. About one in every 35 africanamerican men, one in every 88 latino men is serving time right now. Among white men, that number is one in 214. The bottom line is that in too many places black boys and black men, latino boys and latino men experience being treated differently under the law. And i want to be clear. This is not just anecdotal. This is not just barbershop talk. A growing body of Research Shows that people of color are more likely to be stopped, frisked, questioned charged, detained. Africanamericans are more likely to be arrested. They are more likely to be sentenced to more time for the same crime. One of the consequences of this is around one million fathers are behind bars. Around one in nine africanamerican kids has a parent in prison. What is that doing to our communities . Whats that doing to those children . Our nations being robbed of men and women who could be workers and tax payers could be more actively involved in their childrens lives, could be role models, could be community leaders. Right now, they are locked up for a nonviolent offense. So our criminal Justice System isnt as smart as it should be. Its not keeping us as safe as it should be. It is not as fair as it should be. Mass incarceration makes our country worse off and we need to do something about it. But heres the good news. Good news. Dont get me preaching, now. I am feeling more hopeful today because even now, lets face it it seems like republicans and democrats cannot agree on anything, a lot of them agree on this. In fact today, back in washington, republican senators from utah and texas are joining Democratic Senators from new jersey and rhode island to talk about how congress can pass meaningful criminal Justice Reform this year. Thats good news. That is good news. Good news. That doesnt happen very often. And its not just senators. This is a cause thats bringing people in both houses of congress together. Its created some unlikely bedfellows. Youve got van jones and newt gingrich. Youve got americans for tax reform and the aclu. Youve got the naacp and the koch brothers. You got to give them credit. Got to call it like you see it. There are states from texas and South Carolina to california and connecticut who have acted to reduce their prison populations over the last five years and seen their crime rates fall. Thats good news. My administration has taken steps on our own to reduce our federal prison population. So i signed a bill reducing the 101 [ inaudible ] disparity between crack and powder cocaine. I have commuted the sentences of dozens of people sentenced under old drug laws that we now recognize were unfair and yesterday i announced that im commuting dozens more. Under the leadership of attorney general eric holder now continued by loretta lynch, federal prosecutors got what he called smart on crime which is refocusing efforts on the worst offenders, pursuing mandatory minimum sentences 20 less often than they did the year before. That is you dont always have to charge the max. To be a good prosecutor you need to be proportionate. And it turns out that we are solving just as many cases and there are just as many police bargains and its working. Its just that we have eliminated some of the excess. And recently something extraordinary happened. For the first time in 40 years americas crime rate and incarceration rate both went down at the same time. That happened last year. So theres some momentum building for reform. Theres evidence mounting for why we need reform. I want to spend the rest of my time just laying out some basic principles some simple ideas for what reform should look like, because we are just at the beginning of this process and we need to make sure that we stay with it. Im going to focus on what happens in three places in the community, in the courtroom and in the cell block. So i want to begin with the community because i believe crime is like any other epidemic. The best time to stop it is before it starts. And im going to go ahead and say what ive said a hundred times before or a thousand times before, and what youve heard me say before. If we make investments early in our children we will reduce the need to incarcerate those kids. So one study found that for every dollar we invest in prek, we save at least twice that down the road in reduced crime. Getting a teenager a job for the summer costs a fraction of what it costs to lock him up for 15 years. 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. What doesnt make sense is treating entire neighborhoods as little more than danger zones where we just surround them. We ask police to go in there and do the tough job of trying to contain the hopelessness when we are not willing to make the investments to help lift those communities out of hopelessness. Thats not just a police problem. Thats a societal problem. Places like west philly or west baltimore or ferguson 05rua theyre part of america, too. Theyre not separate. Theyre part of america like anywhere else. The kids there are american kids. Just 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. So if you are a parent you know that there are times where boys and girls are going to 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. Thats not the right thing to do. 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. And even as we recognize that Police Officers do 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 our police and some of the communities where they serve. And a good place to start is making sure communities around the country adopt the recommendations from what 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 better training better Data Collection to make sure that policing is more effective and more accountable but is also more unbiased. So these are steps in the community that will lead to fewer folks being arrested in the first place. Now, they wont eliminate crime entirely. There is going to be crime. Thats why the second place we need to change is in the courtroom. For nonviolent drug crimes we need to lower long mandatory minimum sentences or get rid of them entirely. 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. We need to ask prosecutors to use their discretion to seek the best punishment the one thats going to be most effective, instead of just the longest punishment. We should invest in alternatives to prison like drug courts and treatment and probation programs which ultimately can save tax payers thousands of dollars per defendant each year. Now, 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. And as republican senator john cornyn has reminded us virtually all of the people incarcerated in our prisons will eventually some day be released. And thats why the third place we need reform is in the cell block. So on thursday i will be the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. And im 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 pay back their debt to society, that we are increasing the possibility that they can turn their lives around. That doesnt mean that we will turn everybodys life around. That doesnt mean there arent some hard cases. But it does mean that we want to be in a position in which if somebody in the midst of imprisonment recognizes the error 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 theyre in a position to make the turn. Thats why we should not tolerate conditions in prison that have no place in any civilized country. We should not be tolerating overcrowding in prison. We should not be tolerating Gang Activity in prison. We should not be tolerating rape in prison. And we shouldnt be making jokes about it in our popular culture. Thats no joke. These things are unacceptable. Whats more i have asked my attorney general to start a review of the overuse of solitary confinement across american prisons. The social science shows that 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 so many people alone in tiny cells for 23 hours a day for months sometimes for years at a time . That is not going to make us safer. Thats 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. And look i dont want to pretend like this is all easy. But some places are doing better than others. Mnt gom 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. Heres another good idea. One with bipartisan support in congress. Lets reward prisoners with reduced sentences if they complete programs that make them less likely to commit a repeat offense. Lets invest in Innovative New approaches to link former prisoners with employers. Help them stay on track. Lets follow the growing number of our state and cities and private companies who have decided to ban the box on job applications so former prisoners who have done their time and are now trying to get straight with society have a decent shot in a job interview. And if folks have served their time and they have reentered society, they should be able to vote. Communities that give our young people every shot at success, 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 thats where we need to build. But i want to add this. We cant ask our police or our prosecutors or our Prison Guards or our judges to bear the entire burden of containing and controlling problems that the rest of us are not facing up to and willing to do something about. So yes, we have to stand up to those who are determined to slash investments in our community an4ov any cost cutting preschool programs cutting job Training Programs cutting Affordable Housing programs, Cutting Community policing programs. Thats shortsighted. Those investments make this country strong. Weve got to invest in opportunity more than ever. An africanamerican man born roughly 25 years ago has just a one in two chance of being employed today. More than one in three africanamerican children are growing up in poverty. When americas Unemployment Rate was 9. 5 when i first came into office, as it was going up we properly recognized this is a crisis. Right now, the Unemployment 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 lift up Job Opportunities for these young people. So today i have be t