Investigating The Roots Of The Prison Industrial Complex

Examining the Roots of the Prison Industrial Complex Sydney Conlon On July 13th, 2015, President Obama granted clemency to 46 prisoners, facing decades of prison time for low-level non-violent drug offenses. Obama said the nation is spending too much money on incarceration of individuals who received long sentences for relatively minor drug crimes, and so by granting amnesty to these 46 prisoners, he hopes to push the drive towards prison reform. This simple action gave four dozen prisoners a second chance at life. This brings Obama’s commutations to 89. Presidential clemency has always been controversial. With George Bush commuting Scooter Libby’s sentence, and Bill Clinton pardoning financier Marc Rich, the American people have†¦show more content†¦Most mandatory minimum sentencing laws were written when America was in a full-fledged anti-drug hysteria. So to fight the perceived drug menace, Ronald Reagan passed tough mandatory minimum drug penalties, and his successor, President Bush, pushed for even harsher laws. And this wasn’t solely a republican issue either. Democrats in Congress and State Legislatures, and even Bill Clinton pushed for these laws, and by 1994, 31 states plus Washington DC had minimum mandatory sentencing laws for drug crimes. This didn’t lower the crime rate, it simply increased prison populations. Extremely long sentences are not a good deterrent for crime because the people committing crimes do not think they’re going to get caught, nor are they aware of the punishments they’re faced with. Mandatory minimums didn’t just â€Å"not work.† They ruined lives. For instance, Kevin Ott, a prisoner in custody of Oklahoma State Correctional Facility, was incarcerated for trafficking methamphetamine. Ott has life without parole for three ounces of meth. Or take the case of Weldon Angelos, a non-violent