In Anamosa, Sanders calls for prison reform

ANAMOSA - In this Jones County town where the Iowa State Penitentiary is one of the largest employers, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont called for a national discussion about the 'destruction of human life” through incarceration and 'the expenditure of vast, vast sums of money that we think could be better spent in other ways.”

His campaign is not about sound bites, the 2016 Democratic hopeful told about 300 people at Strawberry Hill Elementary School on Saturday morning. The campaign's focus is 'to force discussion on issues often swept under the rug.”

Racial justice and prison reform are among those issues, he said. In the United States, he said, 2.2 million people are incarcerated - more than in any other nation - at a cost of $80 billion every year.

'Clearly, we can do a lot better,” he said. 'But we are not going to do a lot better unless we break through some old ideas.”

Addressing prison reform in Anamosa, where about 400 people are employed at the penitentiary and more than 1,000 are incarcerated, didn't happen entirely by chance, according to Sanders' state director Robert Becker. Sanders wanted to address the issue and when an event was scheduled in Anamosa it seemed like a good place to have the conversation, he said.

Sanders offered few specifics other than a call to end the privatization of prisons. Sanders said there is no shortage of ideas to address racial justice, poverty and prison reform, but decisions must be made about where to put resources. Addressing those issues make more fiscal sense, he said, than building more prisons and spending more on imprisoning people.

'I'm a proud progressive,” Sanders said, 'but any conservative should be listening … because the evidence is overwhelming that when you invest in children … you save substantial sums of money. At the end of the day, providing a path to go to the University of Iowa is a helluva lot cheaper than putting them on a path to jail.”

Sanders brought a panel of speakers with him to address those issues and answer questions.

Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner said she is supporting Sanders 'because of his righteous indignation for poor folks.” He is the only candidate with a program to meet the physical, political, legal and economic challenges facing minority Americans, she said.

He also is fighting for other minorities, said Sierra Winey of Lost Nation. A first-time voter, Winey said she's attracted to Sanders because he fights for 'minorities without rights” including the LGBT community.

'He's not like other candidates,” the Midland High School senior said.

Jerry Oakland of Marion agreed, adding that he's impressed by Sanders' passion, his attention to issues and understanding that the 'need of the people is great.”

Before he wrapped up the meeting, Sanders turned to the signature issue of his campaign - income inequality and the need to build a new economy to strengthen the middle class and address poverty.

The top one-tenth of 1 percent 'owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent,” he said. 'The wealthiest 20 people in this country … own more than the bottom 50 percent of the American people, 150 million people.”

And they don't want a national discussion about how to address that disparity, he said.

'They'd rather has us fighting against each other, black and brown and white, and gay and straight, you're born in Mexico, you're born in America. Let's all fight it all out. Let's have a war with Mexico. Let's ban all Muslims. Let's talk about that,” he said. 'Let's not talk about how we come together to create an economy that works for all, not just the top 1 percent.”