...Mr Obama said for what the US spends
on keeping people in prison per year, $80 billion, there could be universal
pre-school, doubled salaries for high school teachers or free tuition at US
public colleges or universities.
This week's focus on criminal
justice signals a renewed bid by Mr Obama's administration to tackle what he
sees as a lack of fairness in the system.
"Communities that give our
young people every shot at success, tough but fair courts and prisons that seek
to prepare returning citizens to get that second chance...That's what we're
here to build," he said.
The last significant changes to the
criminal justice system in the US came in 2013 when US Attorney General Eric
Holder dropped mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders.
US prisons in numbers
- 208,000 people in federal prisons
- 48% of them for drug offences
- 37% of them are black
- 34% of them are Hispanic
- $80bn the cost of incarceration in the US in 2010
DoJ, Federal Bureau of Prisons
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