Political Quotes

“I want to talk today about the criminal justice reform legislation before the Senate. This is legislation that deals with two huge issues in our criminal justice system. One is important to sentencing reform. A lot of this is to level the playing field--for instance, between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, what kind of sentencing ought to be used, something that has been talked about for many years. There is, in our view--many of us--an injustice with the levels of sentencing. That is important. Second, this legislation deals with an issue that many States are finally figuring out, which is that we need to do something to keep people who are leaving our jails and prisons from coming right back into the criminal justice system again. These numbers are just amazing. Ninety-five percent of those who are incarcerated will be released someday. We all know that. When people are released from prison or jail, over a 3-year period about two-thirds of them are rearrested. Some call it a revolving door. There is a fancier word for it. It is called recidivism, and it is a huge issue. Think about it. If two-thirds of the people are back in the prison system or the criminal justice system, that means they have committed another crime. That means our communities are less safe.…”