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b'Broken Justice: Lois Ahrens, Founder of the Real Cost of Prison Project, joins the program to discuss what the current conditions are with our broken justice system and how we got here.

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Broken Justice, it\'s a Bi-Partisan Issue
\\u201cThere is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential\\u2026 The criminal-justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it.\\u201d
Republican - Past Presidential Candidate, Past Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich


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\\u201cIt\\u2019s time to end the era of mass incarceration. We need a true national debate about how to reduce our prison population.\\u201d
Democrat - 2016 Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton


\\u201cThough only five\\xa0percent of the world\\u2019s population lives in the United States, it is home to 25 percent of the world\\u2019s prison population. \\u2026 Not only does the current overpopulated, underfunded system hurt those incarcerated, it also digs deeper into the pockets of taxpaying Americans.\\u201d \\xa0
Republican/Libertarian - 2016 Presidential Candidate, Senator Rand Paul

\\u201cWe believe Congress has a critical role to play in helping to restore trust in the criminal justice system, ensuring that every American is treated equally before the law,\\u201d\\xa0
Democrats - Reps. Elijah Cummings, John Conyers, Jr., and Bennie Thompson, the ranking Democratic members on three powerful House committees.

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Lois Ahren\'s Bio
Lois Ahrens has been an activist and organizer for social justice for more than 50 years. She is the founding director of the Real Cost of Prisons Project, a national organization based in Northampton, MA. She is also a founding member of The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.

In 2000, Lois began the Real Cost of Prisons Project which brings together activists, artists, justice policy researchers and people directly experiencing the impacts of mass incarceration to organize to end the carceral state.

Lois believes we can only authentically and fundamentally change the costly and damaging systems of mass incarceration and mass criminalization through being guided by the insight and leadership of families of incarcerated people and through knowing and working with formerly incarcerated and incarcerated people.

Her correspondence and visits with people who are incarcerated has led her to focus on extremely long sentences and the punitive and damaging conditions of confinement faced by all people who are incarcerated in the U.S.

You can learn more about Lois and her organization at\\xa0www.realcostofprisons.org

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\\u201cIt is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.\\u201d\\xa0
\\u2015\\xa0Nelson Mandela

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Here the full episode on YouTube (Remember to Subscribe):
https://youtu.be/lLZLZkOSkpQ

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