“There are too many people in prison and too many of them are Black, brown and young,” said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard Law School professor. “It’s the right time to look at the criminal justice system. It has been a failure,” he told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs.
Ogletree, who taught President Barack Obama at Harvard, said services such as after-school programs and mentoring can go a long way toward keeping youth out of trouble. He even cited the example of his former student, now the president of the United States.
As an African-American male being raised by a single mother, Obama could have faced trouble in his youth, Ogletree said. But mentors and other caring adults played a valuable role. “Mentors kept him in check,” he said.
The Harvard scholar was testifying in support of S. 714, a bill from Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that calls for a blue-ribbon panel to review the nation’s criminal justice system. A commission appointed by the president and Congress would spend 18 months studying all facets of the system, including policies on incarceration, parole and prisoner re-entry.
