Extended discussion of race and justice among Democratic hopefuls

Thanks to the folks at The Sentencing Project, you can catch a video of the extended discussion of race and criminal justice issues that took up about six minuted in last night's Democratic candidate's debate. Here's the link to the debate link and a brief overview from The Sentencing Project:

Democratic Forum, the first of the All-American Presidential Forums broadcast on PBS and hosted by Tavis Smiley, addressed the issues of mandatory minimum sentencing and racial disparity in the nation's criminal justice system Thursday.  Hosted at Howard University in Washington, D.C., the forum focused on crime and punishment as one of eight topics presented to the Democratic candidates.  Rep. Kucinich first brought up the need to eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing when asked about the disparate rate of incarceration, because "We know who's serving those mandatory minimums."  Several candidates addressed the need for reform of federal crack cocaine sentencing laws, including Sen. Joseph Biden, who this week introduced the Drug Sentencing Reform & Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2007 which would eliminate the crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity.

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• Clinton and Obama, crime and punishment
• Will sentencing issues surface in the Clinton-Obama battle for black votes?
• Politics and the war on drugs
• Should criminal justice reform be the new civil rights movement?
• Honoring MLK by asking hard questions
• The latest BJS stats on incarceration nation