“There are too many people in prison and too many of them are Black, brown and young,” said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard Law School professor. “It’s the right time to look at the criminal justice system. It has been a failure,” he told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs.
Ogletree, who taught President Barack Obama at Harvard, said services such as after-school programs and mentoring can go a long way toward keeping youth out of trouble. He even cited the example of his former student, now the president of the United States.
As an African-American male being raised by a single mother, Obama could have faced trouble in his youth, Ogletree said. But mentors and other caring adults played a valuable role. “Mentors kept him in check,” he said.
