Fight for ‘ fair’ justice

O reform push amid inmate ‘ explosion’

WASHINGTON — Decrying an “explosion” in prison inmates, President Obama on Tuesday called for ending a system that has put a disproportionate share of black and Latino men behind bars for lowlevel offenses.

“In far too many cases, the punishment simply does not fit the crime,” Obama told the NAACP in Philadelphia at the organization’s 106th annual conference.

“In too many places, black boys and black men, Latino boys and Latino men, experience being treated differently under the law,” Obama told the crowd, to applause.

Obama reeled off stunning statistics that included: 1 million fathers behind bars; 1 in 9 black children with a parent in prison; a US prison population that grew from 500,000 in 1980 to 2.2 million today.

“What is that doing to our communities?” Obama asked. “What’s that doing to those children? Our nation’s being robbed of men and women who could be workers and taxpayers,” he said.

Obama is making a major secondterm push to try to lighten sentences for nonviolent offenders before he leaves office— at a time when several tragedies have called attention to conflicts between police and communities.

On Thursday, Obama will visit a federal mediumsecurity lockup in Oklahoma City, where he will meet with prison officials and inmates.

In Tuesday’s speech, he was able to point to rare bipartisan agreement on the need for reform.

“Let’s face it, Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on anything. A lot of them agree on this,” he said.

He quoted Sen. Rand Paul ( RKy.) as saying incarceration costs taxpayers a lot of money without “making them any safer.”

The White House put the actual cost at $ 80 billion a year.

“If you’re a lowlevel drug dealer or you violate your parole, you owe some debt to society . . . But you don’t owe 20 years,” Obama said.

The president acknowledged that there are “some folks who need to be in jail.

“They’ve done some bad things: Murderers, rapists, predators, rapists, drug kingpins. We need some of those folks behind bars,” he said.

CRIME& PUNISHMENT: President Obama, speaking Tuesday at the NAACP convention in Philadelphia, decried the incarceration rate of blacks and Latinos who have committed low- level crimes.