NAACP President Benjamin Jealous writes in an Essence magazine commentary that his three-year-old daughter has a low chance of marrying a black man because one in every ten black men between ages 25 and 29 is incarcerated. “… I do want her to have a choice of African-American men. The disproportionate number of black men swept into the prison system threatens that hope,” writes Jealous. He states that the justice system targets African Americans and treats them more harshly for drug offenses and points out that treatment makes more sense than incarceration.
“Changing this paradigm is our moral responsibility and it's fiscally smart. It is cheaper to send nonviolent drug offenders to a drug treatment facility where they can get help than send them to prison. This is a perfect storm for change, a rare confluence of moral imperative and fiscal necessity. The economic and political shifts in our country have opened the door to advance policies that we thought would take decades to push through.”
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