MLK, Obama, and Criminal Justice Reform

Amid all of the hoopla yesterday appeared a Detroit Free Press editorial calling for the twin celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President Obama's inauguration to prompt reform of the criminal justice system. I was pleasantly surprised to see the phrase "criminal justice system" among the inauguration-themed headlines, and thought others might be interested to read the editorial, too. A few excerpts:

A nation where millions of African Americans couldn't vote 50 years ago has elected its first black president and embraced the change he represents. Still, King's dream of racial equality remains unfulfilled. The world's most powerful democracy is also its leading incarcerator. African Americans -- 13% of the population -- make up nearly half of all those in jail or prison. The nation that elected its first black president also has 1 million black men behind bars....

No doubt, we need prisons. But when too many young men grow up in neighborhoods where most of their peers go to prison or jail, it's time to consider where the get-tough policies of the last 35 years have taken us.

Getting the number of incarcerated to a rational level will take more than re-entry and training programs. It will take serious reforms in sentencing. Figuring out who should go to prison -- and for how long -- and who should not, must become part of a new urban and civil rights agenda, backed by the nation's leader.