Holly Harris
may wear cowboy boots to work, but the Kentucky mom and Executive
Director for the US Justice Action Network (USJAN) is far from your
average southerner.
This past
Saturday, June 25th, Harris talked about her work to a group of
journalists and bloggers who traveled to Washington D.C. from
different corners of the country to hear from leaders of the criminal
justice reform movement. Harris was the first speaker at
FreedomWorks’ #JusticeForAll event, and as the leader of USJAN, she
set the tone for what turned out to be a fascinating conference.
The veteran
litigator opened her speech by outlining USJAN’s goals, explaining
the organization believes “our [criminal] code just doesn’t
make sense.” That’s why their “goal is to shrink
criminal codes” and “get rid of these unfair, unnecessary
duplicative and inconsistent laws.” But it was something else
she told the crowd a few minutes later that got attendees worked up.
“The fastest growing segment of the prison population in
America,” Harris articulated, “is women … and nobody is
talking about that.”
According to
the Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation (FAMM), the
female prison population in the United States has grown by over 800
percent in the last 30 years, while the male population grew by 416
percent during the same period. Despite this staggering growth,
violent criminals are not being sent to prison in droves. Instead,
nearly two-thirds of female prisoners are incarcerated for nonviolent
offenses.
Full
report:
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