Can Empathy Trump Politics?

President Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Trump:

We, the undersigned to this letter, represent the more than 60 million American families who are directly impacted by mass incarceration. It is an ever-apparent scar that our country wears in every way that we shop, work, worship, travel, play, entertain and govern. In some way or another, every American family is overburdened by the growing cost of the repeated cycles of incarceration and the cost of the consequences of incarceration that continue despite a person having served their time in prison, and despite a person having paid back their full debt to our society.

This is a national crisis that should not be minimized by the clashing of partisan rhetoric. Hence, our collective call to civic responsibility compels us to address you with this appeal:

• We ask that you visit a federal and a state prison,
• We ask that you address the prison conditions that sustain and promote the same mindset and behaviors that originated inmate’s crimes:

o Lack of treatment and health care,
o Ineffective use of solitary confinement,
o Reactionary brutality of corrections officers as a short-sighted tool of discipline,
o The inability of wardens to disrupt gang activity and drug trafficking into prisons, and
o The inability of Governors to eliminate systemic corruption within their prison systems.

• We ask that you speak specifically on these issues to American families and learn how the cycle of ineffective mass incarceration impacts us all every day.
• We ask that you speak to the 1 in 14 children that have a parent incarcerated; to understand that to ignore their special needs is a cost we are all certain to carry later.
• We ask that you close all private prisons and mandate the discontinuance of private companies capitalizing on selected prisoner labor.
• We ask that you empower a special panel of experts to advance the exploration of the impacts of this issue so as to remove the more than 44,000 barriers that face returning citizens coming home to attempt a fresh start at a productive and responsible life.
• We ask that you take a strong and swift stance on these matters by meeting with the organizations listed by name as signers to this letter.

Please understand that advocates for these reforms are the same diligent advocates for robust public safety measures that protect us all. We are the same families who are also victims of crime, victims of drug trafficking, and victims of failed outdated punitive policies.

We share the NIA vision that the “justice and corrections system of the United States becomes a system of dignity, safety and progressive personal improvement for all involved.” We share an obligation to inform you, and to support the assertive movement toward the resolution of these issues.