In a speech that included an overt jab at embattled Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders decried the U.S. incarceration rate as an “international embarrassment” and said he considers “reforming our broken criminal justice system one of the most important things that a president of the United States can do.”
During his quick stop on Chicago’s west side, Sanders outlined his plan for criminal justice reform, a platform that includes ending for-profit prisons, removing marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances, eliminating the death penalty, and ending mandatory minimum sentencing.
He described the disproportionately high rate of incarceration for black males and the criminalization of school-aged black Americans a “tragedy.”