In the final months of Obama’s administration the justice department pledged money and training to help prevent former inmates from returning to prison. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions scrapped it and now the White House a year and a half later is trying to decide how to address mass incarceration.
Some point to the unfairness in sentencing laws. Some want programs like GED and job training in prison, but more than 6,000 federal prison jobs have been cut. Some want death penalties for drug traffickers.
What is needed is a holistic systems approach first starting with the root causes that put individuals at risk for criminal activity, then addressing unfair sentencing laws, then rehab in prison that is shown to work followed up by supporting them when the re-integrate into society.