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              Obama: Prison Sentencing Policies Hurt U.S. Economy

   by VOA News

   President Barack Obama said Saturday that the $80 billion annual price
   tag for housing inmates in U.S. prisons has become prohibitive and that
   many nonviolent offenders serving lengthy prison terms are people with
   mental health issues and chemical addictions.

   Obama, in his weekly address, said nearly 60 percent of the country's
   2.2 million prisoners suffer from mental health problems and that 70
   percent need drug treatment.

   In pressing his months-long campaign for criminal justice reform, Obama
   called for new policies aimed at helping the more than 600,000 inmates
   released from prisons each year to become "productive, contributing
   members of their families and communities."

   He said that the White House in the coming days would call on
   businesses to commit to hiring convicts who have served their prison
   terms, and that new steps would be detailed assuring that ex-convicts
   have what he called "a fair shot to compete for a federal job."

   Writing Friday in The New York Times, Jason Furman, chairman of the
   White House Council of Economic Advisers, called the growth of the U.S.
   prison population "staggering," with an incarceration rate more than
   four times the world average.

   He linked that growth to repeat-offender laws and other stricter
   sentencing rules, and he cited new research showing "many of those
   provisions do not appear to have a deterrent effect."
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-prison-sentencing-policies-hurt
   -united-states-economy/3299825.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-prison-sentencing-policies-hurt-united-states-economy/3299825.html