It makes a lot more sense for us to be investing in jobs and education rather than jails and incarceration.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Hillary Clinton understands that we have to invest in education and jobs for our young people, not more jails or incarceration.
Like health care, education is something worth spending on and worth investing in, but we're spending more and getting less.
If we went back to the imprisonment rate we had in the early '70s, something like four out of five people employed in the prison industry would lose their jobs. That's what you're up against.
Think about how much it costs to incarcerate someone. Do we want them just sitting in prison, lifting weights, becoming violent and thinking about the next crime? Or do we want them having a little purpose in life and learning a skill?
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Many of those people deserve to be in prison; however, some of them do not.
As we say at Year Up all the time, investing in our young people is not just a matter of economic justice. It's good business sense.
We should triple the amount we spend on defense and quadruple what we spend on prisons. Why do we pay for food stamps? Welfare? Medicare? They don't keep us safe. If anything, they nurture the most dangerous elements of society.
No one should be incarcerated for debt or squeezed for money they have no chance of getting their hands on.
Being incarcerated is truly very serious, and it has changed my life to such an extent that breaking the cycle has become my sole focus. Jail is definitely not cool. Education is.
I think we will be safer when we can concentrate law enforcement and criminal justice resources and energies on those individuals who truly need, for the safety of society... to be incarcerated.