"Let’s release people who have made dumb mistakes in their past into a more compassionate America. We should strive to live in a country where your worst deed no longer defines you."
(Grant Lamos IV/Getty Images)
Alicia Keys wrote an open letter to encourage fans to sign a petition to reform the Justice system. In the note, the GRAMMY winner explains a need to “scale back overly harsh sentences for nonviolent drug offenders” adding the broken system is “destroying families.”
She adds, “Rather than treating drug addiction and mental illness with compassion and treatment, we punish and incarcerate mothers, fathers and children. Our prisons have become warehouses for the poor, addicted, and mentally ill. We have to change this.”
The call to arms comes following President Barack Obama‘s State of the Union speech yesterday (Jan. 12), in which he called for Justice reform.
Read her entire letter below:
Every night, nearly three million children go to bed with a parent behind bars.
We sell ourselves as the land of the free, but we have more people in prisons and jails than the whole Western world combined.
Is this our America?
On a recent trip to Baltimore, I saw firsthand how the prison system is destroying families. I spoke with an eight-year-old boy about his father, his hero, who “used to take him everywhere.” But now, his father is incarcerated. Sadly, his story is all too common across our nation: children are left to grow up without their heroes, who are also often their mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers.
As a parent myself, I’m asking you to help us fix this system.
Rather than treating drug addiction and mental illness with compassion and treatment, we punish and incarcerate mothers, fathers and children. Our prisons have become warehouses for the poor, addicted, and mentally ill. We have to change this.
President Obama has asked Congress to pass a bill as soon as possible. Both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees have passed versions of a bipartisan bill that would scale back overly harsh sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. But a version of this bill still needs to pass the full Senate and House, which means it needs your support.
We sell ourselves as the land of the free, but we have more people in prisons and jails than the whole Western world combined.
Is this our America?
On a recent trip to Baltimore, I saw firsthand how the prison system is destroying families. I spoke with an eight-year-old boy about his father, his hero, who “used to take him everywhere.” But now, his father is incarcerated. Sadly, his story is all too common across our nation: children are left to grow up without their heroes, who are also often their mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers.
As a parent myself, I’m asking you to help us fix this system.
Rather than treating drug addiction and mental illness with compassion and treatment, we punish and incarcerate mothers, fathers and children. Our prisons have become warehouses for the poor, addicted, and mentally ill. We have to change this.
President Obama has asked Congress to pass a bill as soon as possible. Both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees have passed versions of a bipartisan bill that would scale back overly harsh sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. But a version of this bill still needs to pass the full Senate and House, which means it needs your support.
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