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For a discussion of Poverty, head to the Working-Class Families page.

UPDATE: 04.29.09 Obama Administration renews its call to end the disparity in sentencing between crack-cocaine offenses and powder-cocaine offenses. Read about it here.

My Position: We have an emergency on our hands – not altogether new but altogether urgent. Many Americans are hurting – particularly minorities – caught in a justice system that disproportionately targets them, facing aggressive and often violent law enforcement, and victimized by a steady rise in racial intolerance and intimidation. These are Americans in need, and Americans of all stripes must find ways to come together in the spirit of compassion and generosity when our own is in need. That same spirit is required of us now, to move with all deliberate swiftness in correcting injustices and finding solutions to the disparate treatment of minorities and the poor in this society.

An NAACP report found that when White and minority youth are charged with the same offenses, Black youth are six times more likely to be incarcerated than White youth are. We cannot afford to give up on any of our youth – Black or White – and we must commit the resources to invest in their rehabilitation and educations. Our competitive edge in this global economy is dwindling, and every day that we are quicker to incarcerate than rehabilitate youth is a day we cede more ground to China and India. In our largest cities, we are now graduating only 1 of every 2 highschoolers. The issue of education is inextricably linked to criminal justice, the economy, and even our national security. We will, one day soon, rely on their generation.

We move forward now sobered by these unfortunate findings but focused on an optimistic plan that unifies all Americans in this call for greater equality. We need a colorblind justice system that doles out punishment evenly and without prejudice, one that works to free our youth from lives of criminality and tap, instead, into their reservoir of talents and skills.

For one, we should put an end to the disparity in sentencing for cocaine offenses. Law enforcement and even judges on the bench are balking at the 100-to-1 inequity in sentencing that slaps the same 5-year sentence for possessing 5 grams of crack cocaine as is mandated for possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine. The disparity is feeding the revolving door of our jails, to date inundated with a world-leading 2.2 million prisoners. Over 500,000 of those two million are drug offenders, and more than 40 percent of all prisoners are Black. More than half of the African American men in their early 30s who dropped out of high school spent time in jail. Some communities have more kids behind bars than they do on college campuses. Let's focus our enforcement efforts away from addicts and small-time dealers and onto the big-time drug king pins who supply them.

We worked − intelligently and compassionately − to better reintegrate former prisoners into our society, and passed the Second Chance Act of 2007 last year, which is effective on both counts. It intelligently saves taxpayer dollars and works to bolster public safety, investing resources in a consortium of services proven to keep ex-offenders on the right path. It compassionately addresses the prevalence of substance abuse and poor mental health in that group, and strives to strengthen broken families so that children may stand to benefit.

Our prison system is a revolving door, leaving many without the ample skill or support necessary to become productive members of society. It's why a staggering majority of state prisoners are released only to find themselves back behind bars at least three years later. An increasing number of formerly incarcerated citizens are without suitable education, physical and mental health, employment, or mentoring services − the kind this measure assists in providing. A central tenet of our criminal justice system is rehabilitation. We must not abandon that fruitful and moral imperative. ■