John Legend is working to end mass incarceration through a multiyear initiative called FREE AMERICA. He announced the campaign this morning and will perform at a correctional facility on Thursday in Austin, Texas, as part of a press conference with state legislators in hopes of starting a dialogue about the state's criminal justice system, the Associated Press reports.
"We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country," Legend said in an interview. "It's destroying families, it's destroying communities and we're the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration."
The 36-year-old "Glory" singer will later visit a California state prison and will also co-host a criminal justice event in partnership with Politico later this month in Washington, D.C.
Other artists, who have yet to be announced, are expected to join the campaign along with other organizations sympathetic to the cause.
"I'm just trying to create some more awareness to this issue and trying to make some real change legislatively," he said. "And we're not the only ones. There are senators that are looking at this, like Rand Paul and Cory Booker, there are other nonprofits that are looking at this, and I just wanted to add my voice to that."
California's passing of Proposition 47 -- which calls for shoplifting, forgery, fraud, petty theft and possession of small amounts of drugs to be treated as misdemeanors rather than felonies -- is a step in the right direction for Legend's campaign.
"Once you have that tag of a felony on your name, it's hard for you to do anything," Legend said. "Getting those reduced to misdemeanors really impacted a lot of lives and we hope to launch more initiatives like that around the country."
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