It is no secret that the United States prison population surpasses that of any other nation, that the country has very harsh sentencing laws for minor offenses, and that, as many argue, the inherent racial bias in the system is powerful and detrimental to society.
It’s an issue that, as Inimai Chettiar and Abigail Finkelman of the Brennan Center for Justice put at The Daily Beast, “seems ripe for genuine bipartisan cooperation.” However, they say, the debate was absent from the 2014 campaign trail — perhaps because it was less controversial, or because candidates feared being seen as soft on crime. “This silence creates the risk that a moment of promise will become a missed opportunity for change.”
But even though candidates avoided any national discussion of the pressing issue, some ballot initiatives could yet influence the criminal justice system.
Voters in California decided to pass Proposition 47, a measure aiming to reclassify as misdemeanors rather than felonies the personal possession of a number of illegal drugs, and the theft of property valued at $950 or less. The measure will also result in resentencing thousands of inmates.
[For more of this story, written by Hanna Kozlowska, go to http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.c...justice-reform/?_r=0]
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