The criminal justice system is broken. The United States incarcerates a higher percentage of its citizens per capita than any other industrialized nation.
This week we talk with one of the champions of sentencing reform, Senator Cory Booker, about a bill that is currently before the Senate. This bill is the most comprehensive reform of federal sentencing guidelines in decades, potentially affecting thousands of lives. We will talk with Senator Booker, and then with the National Council of Churches’ Rev. Aundreia Alexander, about this bill and the problems it seeks to address.
I spoke with Senator Booker in his office this week. The Senator has been working on reforming the criminal justice system for years, and was pleased to speak with us today about the horrific problems in our courts and prisons, the effect incarceration is having on communities and our entire society, and on finding ways in which the problems might be solved.
