Obama adviser: 'It is ridiculous to lock people up when there's an alternative'

Sitting onstage at the JW Marriott ballroom in front of local government  leaders from across the country, Senior White House Adviser Valerie Jarrett echoed a familiar sentiment — one that many in Indiana support.

"It is ridiculous to lock people up when there's an alternative," Jarrett said at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Downtown Indianapolis on Saturday. Jarrett discussed efforts to move away from mass incarceration, which she said, has resulted in $80 billion in annual spending and an "unsustainable" criminal justice system.

Jarrett said the Obama administration's plan focuses on three "buckets": early childhood education, reduced sentences for nonviolent offenders and re-entry programs. A day before Jarrett's visit to Indianapolis, the White House announced a series of programs that officials said would provide job training and education programs for convicted felons.

One initiative would use Pell Grant funds to enroll about 12,000 inmates in educational and training programs at 67 two- and four-year institutions. Under the U.S. Department of Education's Second Chance Pell Pilot Program, 141 federal and state correctional facilities will partner with public and private colleges and universities, which will offer in-person and online classes, or a combination of both.

In Indiana, Holy Cross College, a private and nonprofit school at Notre Dame, will offer associate's and bachelor's degrees to qualified students from the Indiana Women's Prison and Westville Correctional Facility — particularly those who are likely to be released within five years of enrollment.

Pell grants for prisoners: Obama to give inmates a second chance at college

The U.S. Department of Labor also will provide more than $31 million in grants to provide job training for young adults who will re-enter society after incarceration.

"We're squandering (an) opportunity by not giving people with a criminal record a second chance," Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said during a media conference call Thursday.

The initiatives were announced as bills that would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders stalled in Congress. One of those, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, or Senate Bill 2123, would cut prison sentences for certain drug offenses from life imprisonment to 25 years, and from 20 to 15 years, depending on the crime. 

While there has been some progress in sentencing reform, Jarrett said during the conference, it has been slow. 

"There's no good reason why they haven't moved forward," she said of lawmakers, "other than politics."

But given what she called the "dysfunction" in Congress, Jarrett said the issue has bipartisan support.

Before the conversation on criminal justice reform began, Jarrett touched on another area that has recently gained some bipartisan traction: gun control. Only law-abiding citizens who bought a gun legally should have access to it, she said. 

On Friday, a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House promised to build support for a bill that would keep firearms away from people on terrorism watch lists.

Similar conversations about criminal justice and sentencing reforms have been happening in the state over the past several years.

Indiana just went through a massive sentencing reform that sends low-level or nonviolent offenders, many of whom suffer from mental illness and substance abuse, to local communities instead of state prisons. 

The reform, the first major overhaul in more than three decades, took effect in 2014 and aims to reduce the prison population by focusing more on treating rather than incarcerating nonviolent offenders. 

Call IndyStar reporter Kristine Guerra at (317) 444-6209. Follow her on Twitter: @kristine_guerra.

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