I am trying to zero in on a specific question. Do you believe that confinement, solitary confinement, 23 hours a day, five hours a week in which you are allowed to leave that box or something that size, do you believe based on your life…

African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of white Americans.

It strikes me that it raises a serious question.

Solitary confinement makes our criminal justice system criminal.

I want to commend you for being one of the few Senators who knows directly about which we speak, because you visit these places.

It is a mistake, I know, but I am going to do it anyway, to take anecdotal evidence and try to turn it into some profound revelation.

We can no longer slam the cell door and turn our backs on the impact our policies have on those incarcerated and the safety of our nation.

I do not think this makes the situation any better. Some of them are stuck in a cell with somebody who is worse off than they are. It is a threat to them.

We want to make certain--or at least our policy is that those with serious mental illness will not be sent there in the first place.

We do not have to cross that line, and we all kind of know where that line is.

America has led the fight for human rights throughout the world.

We have got to do something about this, and we did.

I hope that that will lead to an honest evaluation of how we can continue to make for a safe prison system, one that is fair and humane, one that anticipates, as you said, that the vast majority of those inmates will one day be back on the…

When it is all over, let us write a record that we can be proud to tell our children about in terms of who we are and what we have done.

I am asking--let me be more specific.

If I had one request to my colleagues on this Judiciary Committee, it is to visit a prison.

We can have a just society and we can be humane in the process.

I have authored the Fair Sentencing Act, which finally reduced dramatically the disparity between crack and powder cocaine.