Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders Announces Legislation to Abolish For-Profit Prisons
Bernie Sanders speaking at the University of Nevada.
Vermont Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders announced on Tuesday that he’ll be filing federal legislation next month to abolish the nation’s for-profit prison system, prohibiting for-profit prisons from operating within the United States.
“When congress reconvenes in September, I will be offering legislation, I will be introducing legislation, which takes corporations out of profiteering from running jails”, Sanders said at a rally on the University of Nevada’s campus which drew an estimated crowd of 5,000.
During the Rally Sanders expressed concerns with our nation’s failing criminal justice system, saying that; “We want to deal with minimum sentencing… Too many lives have been destroyed for non-violent issues. People that are sent to jail have police records. We have got to change that. Our job is to keep people out of jail, not in jail.”
Sanders also told the crowd that he plans to address cannabis legalization in the coming weeks; although he’s announced his support for decriminalizing cannabis in the past, he’s stated that he’s examining how Washington and Colorado are doing before coming to a conclusion on whether or not he supports legalization.
New polling released this week shows that Sanders is steadily climbing in the polls; he currently has the support of 29% of Democrats (a 10% jump from July), compared to 47% for front-runner Hilary Clinton.
– TheJointBlog
jack andrew
I think it is time to decriminalize the marijuana/hemp laws like the 1937 Marijuana tax act and end the 1970 Controlled Substances Act. Also, start releasing all the non-violent prisoners with a job retraining program to get them back into society.
Joseph. Mee
In the words of the late and great,John Lemon…”Everybody smoke pot”.To not use this medicinal. Safe Resource is the only crime connected to it.It has to be Normalised!People are suffering and in need.