Trump can win on federal prison reform

The tale told by incarceration statistics in the United States is staggering. The nation, with about 5 percent of the world’s population, has 21 percent of the world’s prisoners. African-Americans are incarcerated at about five times the rate of white people, often for drug-related crimes, even though study after study shows the two groups use and sell drugs at similar rates. Much of that disparity is due to unfairly harsh sentences levied against those convicted of crimes involving crack cocaine, whose use is more prevalent in the black population than the powder cocaine more commonly…