Vice News released a telling documentary on December 12 about the justice system in America— with the help of President Obama. The documentary shed light on the failing and biased American judicial system from the perspective of top governing officials, prisoners, and families.
In July 2015, President Obama became the first sitting President to visit a federal prison to see for himself the failures programs like the war on drugs have produced— like causing Americans to make up 25% of the worlds prisoners. Obama sat down for an unscripted conversation with four inmates to talk about the common struggles many inmates face.
One of the points touched upon was the disproportionate sentences people receive for non-violent crimes due to mandated sentencing minimums by Congress. Inmates described a repercussion of imprisoning so many is that many children are growing up in households, often minority households, without a father figure— causing their children to act out. This is a prime reason places like Chicago are statistically similar to war zones in the Middle East in terms of deaths. Society has imprisoned many fathers, leaving many children vulnerable to the temptations of the streets. Making some parts of inner-cities so dangerous people risk their lives driving past certain times.
The first step to admitting any problem is to admit there is a problem. The documentary featured top governing officials, like former Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama, admitting that we have a racially biased and unfair justice system, our method of imprisonment is ineffective and harmful, and being “hard on drugs,” is merely politically expedient for politicians and an ineffective way of keeping crime down. Bill Clinton said at a speech to the NAACP, “I signed the bill that made the problem worse and I wanna admit it.”
The solution the prison system formulated to correct the wrongs in the political justice system is to mimic federal correctional institutions like the one in El Reno, Oklahoma. Here, inmates serve in 8,000 hour training programs dedicated to a trade like welding. In programs like this inmates learn a trade— something they didn’t have before— which keeps them off the streets when they leave prison and out of the system, saving tax-payer dollars. In addition, prisoners described the need for better prison programs like education, meditation, and other life skills— many prisons are accelerating the use of these methods and are changing inmates lives in a positive way. Instead of having prisoners lives go on pause for decades at a time in prison, why not increase their productivity through education and training to prepare them for a life outside of the prison system.
Developing workers with basic skills is important for the future American economy. The strong value of the dollar has discouraged American exports to other countries— since purchasing American goods is expensive due to the strong value of our currency in relation to the rest of the world. However, with an incoming Trump presidency signaling high exports and production coupled with the potential of the dollar to fall from its recent historic high’s (incentivizing demand for US goods since they would be cheaper due to a weaker dollar), America needs to be ready with a well-trained workforce— we currently have record low labor force participation rates. What better place to get cheap American workers— to train and introduce into a workforce and a society that has done them wrong— than non-violent offenders seeking to be accepted back into society?
Here is a link to the full documentary:
