Conserving criminal-justice reform
During his 20 years in prison, Harris worked a $1.15-an-hour prison job; his wages failed to cover the cost for his wife, Charlene Hamilton, to visit him in prison, let alone help provide for their two young daughters. As a newly single mother, Hamilton turned to welfare payments and relatives for support; she briefly became homeless a couple of times after being unable to make ends meet. As Hamilton put it: “Basically, I was locked up with him.” None of this is to suggest that Harris should not have gone to prison—even he agrees that he deserved some prison time—but his experience in the criminal-justice system demonstrates that incarceration affects not only prisoners themselves, but also their families, communities, and all American taxpayers.
Harris is merely one of millions of Americans who experience the country’s outsized and inefficient criminal-justice system.
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Image credit: Alex Staroseltsev