About 1000 people gathered at the JW Marriot in Downtown Grand Rapids on Wednesday for the Mel Trotter Ministries Season of Hope Luncheon. The guest of honor for this year’s luncheon was New York Times best-selling author Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson recently won a historic ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court banning mandatory life-without-parole sentence for all children 17 or younger
“In 1972 there were 300,000 people in jails and prisons in the United States. Today there are 2.3 million people in jails and prisons. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world.”
And the message of justice reform rang true for many in the audience. Here is mayor of Grand Rapids, Rosalynn Bliss.
“I personally have long been an admirer of Bryan Stevenson and his passion, dedication, and tireless work in fighting for equal justice and human rights.”
When it comes to the criminal justice system in Michigan, arrest rates in the last ten years have decreased for all racial groups except for Black women. Even though representation of Black men in jail has decreased—this group continues to show significant overrepresentation, according to latest data from the Pew Research Center. And its these issues that Stevenson hopes to bring light to in Michigan.
“We said that people who are drug addicted and drug dependent are criminals, and because of that we’ve sent hundreds of thousands of people to jails and prisons. Now we didn’t have to say that, we could have said that people who are addicted to drugs and drug dependent have a health problem and we need our healthcare system to respond to that problem.”
Michelle Jokisch Polo, WGVU News.