The day before his appearance at the NAACP convention, Obama granted clemency to 46 inmates, most of whom were incarcerated for non-violent offenses under mandatory minimum sentencing laws. In his speech in Philadelphia, the president said the mandatory sentencing laws for non-violent offenses are in large part responsible for the quadrupling of the number of people behind bars in the U.S. since 1980. He is proposing those mandatory minimum sentences be reduced or eliminated, allowing judges to use discretion in sentencing.
He pointed out that research shows that "people of color are more likely to be stopped, frisked, questioned, charged and detained," and while African Americans and Latinos make up 30 percent of the U.S. population, they make up 60 percent of its inmates.
One of the consequences is that around one million fathers are behind bars, and around one in nine African-American children has a parent in prison.
These are questions that Sharon Content, founder and president of Children of Promise, NYC, can answer all too readily.
Children of Promise, NYC, a community-based nonprofit located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, provides after-school programming, a summer day camp and a mental health clinic to over 300 children of incarcerated parents each year.
Children ages six to 18 come to the agency after school for help with homework, mentoring and mental health services that are integrated throughout all areas of the program and which take into account the trauma the children have experienced.
Ayana, age 12, has been coming to the program since she was five, and says the staff at Children of Promise help her with her favorite subject, math, and give her a safe place to talk about the sadness and pain of missing her father who has been in prison since he was 19 years old — all of Ayana's life.
In the seven years that Children of Promise has been in existence, serving over 1,000 children, Content estimates that as few as five parents of children in the program have been released from prison.
If mandatory sentencing laws are changed, as Obama is proposing, many of the children at Children of Promise could see their parents come home, Content said.
For parents who return home, Children of Promise provides them with concrete support and mental health services.
"There are so many layers of trauma involved in parental incarceration," Morgan-Mullane said. "Many of our children witnessed the arrest, many were in the home when the things were happening" that led to the arrest.
When she first started coming to the program, Ayana did not feel comfortable talking with anyone about missing her dad.
While she is appreciative of the president's granting clemency to dozens of individuals incarcerated under strict mandatory minimum sentencing laws, Content says the action is a "drop in the bucket", given the thousands of others serving long sentences for similar offenses. Yet both she and the president expressed hope for the success of his proposed reforms due to bipartisan support in both houses of Congress.
Melinda Clemmons is a reporter and marketing manager for The Chronicle of Social Change.