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When 130 current and former police chiefs,federal and state prosecutors, and attorneys general call for a reduction in incarceration in America, and you know something's up.
The group,which calls itself "Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime," meets with President Obama nowadays after publishing a report on Wednesday that calls for alternatives to arrest and prosecution, and the reclassification of crimes as solutions to the problems of incarceration that gain left us with 2.2 million behind bars in this country.
Here to discuss the plan is Marc Mauer,the executive director of The Sentencing Project.
But while the formation of the Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime seeks to ultimately put less people in prison, there's still the question of what happens to those people who effect end up in jail.
Rick Raemisch oversees a sizable portion of those 2.2 million people as the executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections.
When he took over the role in 2013, and he made it his goal to address mental health-related issues,particularly as he saw people in his overcrowded prisons struggle on a day-to-day to basis. He even spent 20 hours himself in solitary confinement to experience firsthand what is a common practice in his state, and throughout the nearly parallel universe of prison populations.
What you'll learn from this segment:What policy changes are being put forward by Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime.
How mental health and incarceration are connected.
What needs to happen inside prisons to make it an efficient system that actually works.
Source: wnyc.org