Obama: ‘Counterproductive’ Spending on Prisons Instead Schools, Books

"We all want safety, and we all know how pernicious the drug culture can be in undermining communities. But this massive trend toward incarceration even of nonviolent drug offenders, and the costs of that trend are crowding out other critical investments that we can make in public safety. If we're spending a whole lot of money on prisons, and we don't have computers or books or enough teachers or sports or music programs in our schools, we are being counterproductive. It’s not a good strategy.”