PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Calling it an issue America can't afford to ignore, President Barack O...

1. Obama calls for shorter sentences for nonviolent convicts
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Calling it an issue America can't afford to ignore, President Barack Obama
laid out an expansive vision Tuesday for fixing the criminal justice system by focusing on
communities, courtrooms and cellblocks. He announced a federal review of the use of solitary
confinement and urged Congress to pass a sentencing reform bill by year's end.
In a speech to the NAACP's annual convention, Obama also called for voting rights to be restored to
felons who have served their sentences, and said employers should "ban the box" asking job
candidates about their past convictions. He said long mandatory minimum sentences now in place
should be reduced - or discarded entirely.
"In far too many cases, the punishment simply doesn't fit the crime," Obama told a crowd of 3,300 in
Philadelphia. Low-level drug dealers, for example, owe a debt to society, but not a life sentence or
20-year prison term, he said.
With his speech to the prominent African-American advocacy group, Obama sought to put a spotlight
on the need for new legislation as he mounted a weeklong push on criminal justice reform. A day
earlier, Obama commuted the sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders - the most commutations a
president has issued on a single day in at least four decades.
Upon arriving Tuesday in Philadelphia, Obama met with a number of former prisoners to discuss
their experience re-entering society, the White House said. And on Thursday, Obama planned to put
a personal face on the nation's mushrooming prison population with a visit El Reno Federal
Correctional Institution outside of Oklahoma City - the first visit to a federal prison by a sitting U.S.
president.
The assertive moves reflected a president eager to wield his executive power during his waning
years in office to reduce harsh sentences, cut costs and correct disparities he said have
disproportionally burdened minorities. Earlier in his presidency, as he spent his political capital
carefully on major domestic priorities, Obama spoke cautiously and only intermittently about the
need for smarter sentencing and other justice changes.
But as of late, public attention has been piqued by a serious of upsetting incidents across the
country. In places like Baltimore, New York and Ferguson, Missouri, tensions between law
enforcement and their communities have spilled out into the open, underscoring longstanding
concerns among minority communities that they're treated differently in the criminal justice system.
Obama pointedly acknowledged that many people in the U.S. need to be in prison - "murderers,
predators, rapists, gang leaders" - yet he said that in too many instances, law enforcement is
treating young black and Latino men differently than their white peers.
"This is not just anecdotal. This is not just barbershop talk," he said.
The White House said Obama wouldn't hesitate to commute more sentences in the coming months if
the circumstances were right. Yet Obama's ability to address the problem unilaterally is limited, as
the White House readily concedes. So Obama has set his sights on the kind of comprehensive fix that
only Congress can provide.

2. "The statistics cannot be ignored. We
cannot close our eyes anymore," Obama
said.
Working in Obama's favor: tentative but
optimistic signs of common ground
between Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans in particular have spoken
with growing enthusiasm about the need
for structural change. Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-
Iowa, has been working on legislation
that could reduce some mandatory
minimums. Republican Sen. John Cornyn
of Texas and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island are backing a bill that would
steer lower-risk inmates into programs where they could earn earlier release by participating in
recidivism-reduction programs.
In another positive sign for the prospects of justice reform, a number of 2016 presidential
candidates have taken an active interest in the issue. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has mounted a vocal
push to restore voting rights to nonviolent felons who have served their terms and to make it easier
for people with criminal records to get jobs. Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., planned to give a speech
Thursday in the troubled city of Camden focusing on nonviolent drug offenders.
But not all Republicans were receptive to Obama's pitch. A group of 19 Republicans, led by House
Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, wrote a letter Tuesday to Attorney General
Loretta Lynch accusing Obama of blatantly usurping congressional authority and using his pardon
power for political purposes.
Since Congress enacted mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, the federal prison
population has multiplied, from just 24,000 in the 1980s to more than 214,000, according to Families
Against Mandatory Minimums. In 2010, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, cutting penalties for
crack cocaine offenses. And last year, the independent Sentencing Commission reduced guideline
ranges for drug crimes and applied those retroactively.
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Associated Press writer Nancy Benac in Washington contributed to this report.
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Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP
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