Obama envisions shorter sentences for nonviolent convicts
US President Barack Obama laid out an expansive vision on Tuesday for fixing the US criminal justice system by focusing on communities, courtrooms and cellblocks. He announced a federal review of the use of solitary confinement and urged Congress to pass a sentencing reform bill by year's end.
In a speech to the annual convention of the NAACP civil rights group, Obama also called for voting rights to be restored to felons who have served their sentences, and said employers should stop the practice of asking job candidates about their past convictions. He said long mandatory minimum sentences now in place should be reduced - or discarded entirely.
"In far too many cases, the punishment simply doesn't fit the crime," Obama told a crowd of 3,300 in Philadelphia. Parole violators and low-level drug dealers, for example, owe a debt to society, but not a life sentence or a 20-year prison term, he said.
