Former vice president Joe Biden said during Thursday’s Democratic primary debate that “nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime.”
“We’re in a situation now where there are so many people who are in jail and shouldn’t be in jail,” Biden said. “The whole means by which this should change is the whole model has to change. We should be talking about rehabilitation. Nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime.”
Biden’s comment came in response to concerns from other candidates on the stage that his criminal justice reform plan was “not ambitious enough” to tackle problems with American prisons.
In his response, Biden praised former President Barack Obama’s efforts to release “36,000 people from the federal prison system.” He added that “nobody should be in jail for a drug problem,” saying that crimes related to marijuana should be labeled as misdemeanors. He also said that people currently incarcerated for drug crimes should be released, and “their record should be expunged.” – READ MORE