President Obama’s visit to Newark on𒉰 Monday was one more step in support of bipartisan criminal-justice reform.
Obama means to change a grim reality: The US incarceration rate, 755 per 100,000 citizens, leaves🌠 the nation 🌊with more folks behind bars than Russia and China combined.
And letting t💫hem out isn’t enough. The president cited Newark’s Integrity Hoꦜuse as a “model for the good work” needed: It has served some 2,400 addicts and ex-cons a year for a half-century.
Happily, this is one area where Obama 𒅌has been truly bipartisan, joining in work ⛦already done in Congress by the likes of Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Mike Lee (R-Utah).
But reform must be smart. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton this weekend q🅰uestioned the release of 6,000 federal drug offenders. Someone who seems like “a nonviolent drug offender,” he noted, “may in fact ha🔥ve crimes of violence in their record.”
He pointed to Tyrone Howard, alleged murderer of Detective Randolph Holder. He was on the street that night because he’d been sent into a drug diversion program for “nonviolent” offenders,𒀰 despite a 28-arrest record.
“This guy had been given more chances to deal with his drug addiction problem — he failed e♔very time,” Bratton noted. “Some people are bad people. And we need to separate the bad people from the good people.”
That’s not easy. A few folks released by these reforms will commit more crimes. Minimizing that number is part ♑of why Obama is pushing new rehabilitation ideas.
True criminal justice is never a matter of “locking ’em all up” or “lettin𓆏g ’em all loose.” Here’s hoping Obama and his loyal opposition can keep working together to get it right.