WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, authored an oped on why our criminal justice system is broken and the need for Congress to pass the bipartisan Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123).
Read the full piece on Medium here: http://bit.ly/1T42ydb
The oped is part of the Congress Acts: Criminal Justice Reform series, a collection of pieces written by members of Congress about the need for criminal justice reform.
Excerpts from Coons’ oped: “For far too many, America’s legal system is about punishment, not justice”
“The population of my home state of Delaware is 22 percent black?—?yet nearly 60 percent of the prison population is African-American. This disparity reflects a tragic pattern across the United States, where decades of “tough on crime” and “war on drugs” rhetoric have been matched by equally unsustainable and unjust public policies.”
We have a bill supported by Democrats and Republicans and a diverse coalition of faith, reform, and advocacy groups. We have a President who has acted to end solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons, and who is ready and willing to sign a broader package of criminal justice reforms into law. Now it’s up to Congress.”
“We would be well-served to remember that it is our responsibility not just to punish those guilty of crimes, but also to judge our neighbors fairly and do our best to help them reenter society.”
“We must fight for an America in which parents anywhere, of any race or religion, are empowered to raise kings and queens of their own, and where our justice system truly lives up to its name.”