Since the "War on Drugs" began in the 1980's, the US prison population has exploded from 300k to over 2 million giving the US the highest prison rate in the world. The War on Drugs has been disproportionately fought in low income communities of color, despite the rates of drug use and drug peddling being the same across races. Once prisoners are released they can be legally discriminated against; barred from voting, gaining employment, or receiving public benefits. The combination of race targeted policing and inadequate legal representation for those who can't afford it has led author Michelle Alexander to correctly term mass incarceration, "The New Jim Crow". What is the White House's plan to fix a policy that has resulted in the disenfranchisement of millions of people of color.
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