First, enact smarter sentencing laws that end mandatory minimums and transform the way we treat people who enter the criminal justice system. Instead of prisons and jails, we need well-paying jobs, and to invest in proven and cost-effective alternatives to incarceration, like job training and mental health and drug treatment programs.
Second, stop the militarized policing and end discriminatory policing practices such as "stop and frisk" and "broken windows" that disproportionately target communities of color.
Third, stop building new jails, start closing some existing ones, and begin to invest in schools, public transit, and housing assistance or local jobs programs. States are spending more and more on prisons, while cutting funding for schools. That's crazy.
Finally, "ban the box" -- the box on job applications that asks whether you have ever been convicted of a felony on a job application. Already, dozens of states, cities, and counties have passed bills requiring that employers consider what you can do in the future, not what you might have done in the past.
Instead of locking people up unjustly, and then locking them out of the economy for the rest of their lives, we need to stop wasting human talent and start opening doors of opportunity -- to everyone.
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