Obama Calls for Overhaul of Criminal Justice System

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On Tuesday, fresh off the news of a successful nuclear deal with Iran, President Obama turned his attention to another fraught issue, this one on the domestic front.

Speaking before a crowd of nearly 3,000 at the annual NAACP convention in Philadelphia, the president zeroed in on America’s criminal justice system and made the case for a bipartisan-backed reform effort (per the Minneapolis Star Tribune):

“In far too many cases, the punishment simply does not fit the crime,” Obama told a crowd of more than 3,000 at the NAACP’s annual convention.

“Mass incarceration,” he added, “makes our country worse off and we need to do something about it.”

Obama ticked off statistics showing that the U.S. prison population has quadrupled since 1980 and doubled in the last two decades alone.

The costs “cannot be measured in dollars and cents” alone, he said, pointing to the disproportionate impact on blacks and Hispanics.

“There’s momentum building for reform,” Obama said, pointing to growing interest from both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill and around the country.

–Posted by Kasia Anderson