The criminal justice system isbroken.  The United States incarcerates a higher percentage ofits citizens per capita than any other industrializednation.

This week we talk with one ofthe champions of sentencing reform, Senator Cory Booker, about abill that is currently before the Senate.  This bill is themost comprehensive reform of federal sentencing guidelines indecades, potentially affecting thousands of lives. We will talkwith Senator Booker, and then with the National Council ofChurches’ Rev. Aundreia Alexander, about this bill and the problemsit seeks to address.

I spoke with Senator Booker inhis office this week.  The Senator has been working onreforming the criminal justice system for years, and was pleased tospeak with us today about the horrific problems in our courts andprisons, the effect incarceration is having on communities and ourentire society, and on finding ways in which the problems might besolved.