Ayanna Pressley: “For too long, our Nation's criminal legal system has been wrought with systemic injustices and biases and has…”

“For too long, our Nation's criminal legal system has been wrought with systemic injustices and biases and has prioritized cruelty at the expense of rehabilitation and justice. That is why we have a mass incarceration crisis. Nearly one in two adults in America has had an incarcerated loved one. Today, in the name of all who have felt the injustices of the carceral state, we are standing united to call on President Biden to use his clemency powers to release people from prison and reunite them with their families. There are mothers like Michelle West, who is incarcerated for the crimes of her abuser; brothers like Charles Ellis, Jr., from my district, the Massachusetts Seventh, who had ineffective assistance of counsel when he committed a crime at the age of 19; and sons like Ismael Lira, who was sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent cannabis charge. Madam Speaker, why is anyone still incarcerated for cannabis? With nearly 1 million people behind bars, more people per capita than any other country, it is time for clemency to put the United States on a path toward ending mass incarceration. Locked in cages are people who pose no threat to public safety: the elderly, disabled, and chronically ill; those who were wrongly convicted; and people serving time under outdated sentencing laws. It is the height of hypocrisy to claim they are a risk to public safety when they are the very people at this moment that we are trusting to keep the public safe.…”