The White House and Mass Incarceration
- Dr. Karen Gedney
- Aug 9, 2018
- 1 min read
In the final months of Obama’s administration the justice department pledged money and training to help prevent former inmates from returning to prison. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions scrapped it and now the White House a year and a half later is trying to decide how to address mass incarceration.
Some point to the unfairness in sentencing laws. Some want programs like GED and job training in prison, but more than 6,000 federal prison jobs have been cut. Some want death penalties for drug traffickers.
What is needed is a holistic systems approach first starting with the root causes that put individuals at risk for criminal activity, then addressing unfair sentencing laws, then rehab in prison that is shown to work followed up by supporting them when the re-integrate into society.
My son is currently in the Utah State Prision facing aggravated assult he was never offered reentry services. He was 20 when he went to prision after a long paper trail from what started with underage drinking. Small town place where his father lived wrong last name made him a target third degree felony evading a police officer then class A possession the prosecutor wanted prision time what I did not know at the time Utah State Prision had been privatized my father worked there with inmates getting ready for reentry. At the time there was 90 day R and O access to treatment. Utah had passed a Justice Reinvestment Bill my son wanted off paper they never funded it.