Religious Leaders To Develop An Action Plan to Decriminalize Drugs

This June 13-14, two dozen religious leaders will gather at the historic American Baptist College to examine the disproportionate impact of the war on drugs on poor and black communities.  The U.S incarcerates more people than any other country in the world – both per capita and in the total number of people behind bars.  With less than 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. has almost 25% of the world’s incarcerated population.  This alarming rate of incarceration has had a deleterious effect on poor and black communities. While African American comprise only 13 percent of the US population and 13 of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug law violations and 59 percent of those convicted of drug law violation. This unchecked and immoral assault on vulnerable and marginalized communities is cause for serious critique from within the religious community.
 
Civil rights and religious leaders attending this meeting include Dr. Iva Carruthers (General Secretary of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference) Dr. Forrest Harris (President, American Baptist College), San Francisco civil rights icon Dr. Amos Brown, and DPA Board Member Reverend Edwin C. Sanders, II (Senior Servant, Metropolitan Interdenominational Church, Nashville).
 
This call to action is a historic step in developing a moral, just and compassionate policies that reduce the role of criminalization in drug policy.  The call is urgent – approximately 2.7 million children are growing up in American homes where one or more parents are incarcerated. One in nine black children has a parent behind bars.  Two-thirds of these parents are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, primarily drug law violations.

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