But mass incarceration is not the end of the story. Each year, more than 600,000 individuals are released from lock up and return to their communities. And then America proceeds to punish them for having been punished.

The felony drug ban is just one example. Adopted by Congress twenty years ago, the ban imposes a lifetime restriction on the cash assistance program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and nutrition assistance (SNAP) for anyone convicted of a state or federal drug felony, unless states opt out. In states where the ban applies, a person released from a long prison sentence could be denied basic assistance at a time of extreme vulnerability and risk.

A study by The Sentencing Project found that in the 12 states that impose the lifetime ban, an estimated 180,000 women are impacted. If we include the other 24 states that impose a partial ban, the number of people affected is significantly higher. And because drug law enforcement is conducted with racial biases, people of color are disproportionately denied assistance.

The felony drug ban can be traced back to the 1990s, when politicians of both parties sought political gain by getting “tough on crime.” Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), the sponsor of the ban, argued that “we ought not to give people welfare benefits who are violating the nation’s drug laws.”  After just two minutes of floor debate, the measure was adopted by unanimous consent as part of the 1996 welfare “reform” legislation.

The felony drug ban was consistent with other efforts in Congress to get tough on formerly incarcerated individuals.  In the early 1990s, Congress began to erect barriers and cut services for people struggling to reenter society. First, Pell grants were barred for incarcerated individuals, ensuring that most could not receive a college education prior to release. Then restrictions were enacted to deny people with drug convictions access to welfare benefits, public housing, and financial aid for higher education. Largely missing from the debate was any discussion of whether such post-incarceration punishments are effective or even counterproductive.

Two decades later, there is little evidence that these tough on crime policies have improved public safety.  In general, post-incarceration punishment does little to deter crime, as most people are unaware that a conviction could result in the loss of public benefits.  For example, one study found that of 26 women facing drug charges, not a single one had been aware that she could lose food stamps or welfare benefits as a result of a conviction.

Meanwhile, the felony drug ban is counterproductive to safe reentry. After an individual leaves prison, food and welfare benefits can help meet basic survival needs as she searches for a job and housing.  The denial of such assistance increases the likelihood that formerly incarcerated individuals will return to criminal activity to provide sustenance for their families. And when welfare benefits are not available to offset the cost of drug treatment, it is less likely that former prisoners struggling with addiction will be able to live drug-free and avoid a return to prison. A study by researchers at the Yale School of Medicine even found that denying SNAP to women with felony drug convictions is harmful to public safety.

In recent years, there has been a broad re-thinking of policies that put thousands of people behind bars for long prison terms. States in every region of the country have scaled back harsh penalties that have contributed to mass incarceration.

In Congress, a bipartisan group of Senators has introduced the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which would reduce the impact of harsh mandatory minimum penalties and create rehabilitative programming in federal prisons. The bill would mean fewer people locked up for decades for low-level drug offenses and it would free up funds that could be used for crime prevention and substance abuse treatment.

Federal sentencing reform is indeed necessary to reduce excessive rates of incarceration, which have had diminishing returns for public safety over the years. But along with that should come a reconsideration of post-incarceration punishments that strip former prisoners of the basic assistance they need to get back on their feet. In the past year, Texas and Alabama have taken steps to opt out of the felony drug ban. Until Congress acts to repeal the ban altogether, other states should follow their lead.

It is time to stop punishing people after they have been released from prison—not only to improve the life prospects of people who have served their time, but also as part of a broader effort to strengthen public safety and our communities.

After a four-decade incarceration binge, the state is taking steps to reduce prison populations, which have come at ruinous costs for state coffers and for the disproportionately black and Latino individuals and families who are affected.

The latest step came last month, as California voters approved a ballot measure to reclassify a number of low level offenses from felonies to misdemeanors.  Under Prop 47, offenses such as shoplifting, writing hot checks, and drug possession would be punished less harshly.  This would potentially allow 10,000 individuals currently imprisoned to petition to have their sentences reduced and to return to their families sooner.

In recent years, California has served as an intriguing case study for reducing prison populations without harming public safety.  After the state was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 to address its prison overcrowding crisis, lawmakers responded with a policy of “realignment,” which shifted supervision of non-violent offenders and parole violators to local communities.  In 2012, California voters approved a ballot proposal to ensure that the state’s notorious Three Strikes Law would not send people to prison for life for non-serious offenses.

The effect of these and other changes has been dramatic.  Between 2006 and 2012, California’s prison population decreased by nearly a quarter and while doing so, its drop in violent crime exceeded the national average.  These developments, along with similar developments in New York and New Jersey, show increased support among both policymakers and the public for a public safety strategy that is less reliant on incarceration.

But the largely untold story of criminal justice reform in California is what could happen with the savings.

Under Prop 47—of the hundreds of millions of dollars of projected state prison savings each year—a significant portion will be allocated to preventing crime from happening in the first place.  This will include investments in mental health and substance abuse treatment, programs to reduce school truancy and prevent dropouts, and support for victim services.

Research—as well as common sense—suggest that such interventions can be more effective in reducing crime than incarceration.  But that is not the way our nation has been operating.

Like other states, California has for decades used the criminal justice system to respond to social problems.  Following the failure of other institutions to provide opportunity and education—and yes, to deal with behavioral problems—police, prosecutors, and prisons have taken on roles that used to be left to schools, parents, social workers, and others in local communities.

This is particularly true with the war on drugs, which is a primary driver of mass incarceration and racial disparities.  Today, about 75 percent of incarcerated individuals have a history of substance abuse.  One of every six has a history of mental illness.  Many were abused.   About two-thirds of individuals imprisoned on a drug charge are black or Latino, even though people of all races use and sell drugs at roughly the same rates.

Though we have initiatives aimed at early childhood education, therapeutic interventions for at-risk youth, and treatment for substance abuse and mental illness, they are painfully underfunded compared to the scope of the problem.  Instead of investing in such interventions, we have turned to the criminal justice system, which is an extremely expensive way to address these problems.  Few would dispute that incarceration is sometimes necessary, but the question we should be asking is whether incarceration is the most effective way to ensure safe and healthy communities.

In a definitive report earlier this year, the National Research Council concluded that the rise of mass imprisonment in the United States has “transformed not only the criminal justice system, but also U.S. race relations and the institutional landscape of urban poverty.”

To truly address America’s mass incarceration epidemic, we will need to divert people to substance abuse and mental health treatments rather than sending them to prisons and jails.  We’ll need to remove barriers that keep people with criminal records from starting a new life.  And above all, we’ll need to shift resources away from prisons and invest them in communities.

Prop 47 is only a start, but it may mark a new day for criminal justice reform.

But we don’t just punish people for being poor.  In some cases, we punish them for being punished.

Consider the felony drug ban, which imposes a lifetime restriction on welfare and food stamp benefits for anyone convicted of a state or federal drug felony.  Passed in the “tough on crime” era of the mid-1990s, the ban denies basic assistance to people who may have sold a small amount of marijuana years or even decades ago and have been law-abiding citizens ever since.

Because the felony drug ban was adopted with little debate, it’s hard to know exactly what Congress intended.  But we can measure the law’s effect.  Last year, The Sentencing Project found that the legislation subjects an estimated 180,000 women in the twelve most impacted states to a lifetime ban on welfare benefits.

Given racial disparities throughout the criminal justice system — particularly related to the war on drugs — banning benefits based on a prior drug conviction has brutally unfair consequences for people of color.  About 60% of people in America’s prisons are racial and ethnic minorities.  Of those individuals serving time for drug offenses, about two-thirds are black or Latino.  Further, blacks are three to four times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses than whites, even though they use and sell drugs at roughly the same rates.

People who cannot meet basic needs may be more likely to turn to dangerous activities.  A study by researchers at Yale Medical School found that women who are denied food assistance due to a drug conviction are at greater risk of hunger. These women are also more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior such as prostitution in order to get money for food.

The felony drug ban is just one of many collateral consequences that formerly incarcerated individuals face as they strive to reenter society.  Some of these barriers are informal: an employer who will not hire a person with a criminal record; a university application that requires all applicants to “check the box” for a prior arrest or conviction.

But private sector discrimination has been compounded by laws that erect barriers and cut services for people sent to prison.  In the 1990s, Congress barred Pell grants for incarcerated individuals — ensuring that most could not receive a college education prior to release — and restricted access to public housing and financial aid for higher education for some former prisoners.

Felony disenfranchisement laws – which date to colonial times but were tailored in the post-Reconstruction era to exclude black voters – place voting restrictions on an estimated 5.85 million Americans.  In the upcoming elections, more than one in five black adults will be denied the right to vote in Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia due to a criminal conviction.

Fortunately, as public attitudes about mass incarceration have changed, there is a growing recognition that fair sentencing can meet the mutual goals of punishment and rehabilitation.  Imposing collateral consequences after a criminal conviction is not only vindictive but also counterproductive to building safe and healthy communities.

In recent months, federal lawmakers in both parties have introduced legislation to remove some of these barriers and promote a safer transition into society.  The REDEEM Act, introduced by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rand Paul (R-KY), would allow the sealing of criminal records and lift the ban on benefits for some people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.  Though the bill should go much further — for example, by also lifting restrictions on housing and education benefits — it is a good first step toward restoring access to assistance for individuals who urgently need it.

Former President Bill Clinton — who signed the felony drug ban into law — recently told a group of mayors and law enforcement officials that some measures intended to address crime have been misguided and others have gone too far.  Clinton predicted that criminal justice reform would be debated in the 2016 presidential race.  If so, it will represent a major shift in our politics, which have too often focused on getting tough on crime rather than on promoting healthy communities.  But for millions of people who are still being punished long after completing their sentences, 2016 is too long to wait.

It is an injustice to punish people for being poor.  It is doubly unjust to punish them after they have already been punished.

We have to admit—this sounds great to us. You see, we’re both in DINK households—Dual Income, No Kids. Yuppies in comfortable, do-gooder D.C. jobs. One of us just bought a home, the other is considering it. It’s hard not to read this news and think: Ooh, is the credit retroactive? How can I get a piece of this pie?

But a growing number of D.C. families have a different question about housing: Where are we going to sleep tonight? And our housing policy isn’t helping to provide much of an answer.

Since 2008, the District’s homeless population has increased 73%. Nearly half are people living with families. Though six of America’s ten wealthiest counties are in the D.C. region, one-third of all four member households earn less than $70,000 a year.

At the same time, D.C. housing prices remain sky high. The median price for a D.C. home is half a million dollars. And though the city’s stock of luxury apartments has increased more than 70% since 2010, vacancy rates for older, more affordable apartments remain extremely low.

This combination — of stagnant incomes and high housing prices — means there’s no reason to expect the rise in D.C. homelessness to end anytime soon.

The Great Recession is of course a key driver of these trends. The bad economy and lingering unemployment rates continue to hurt millions of families across the country. But macroeconomic forces aren’t the only thing prolonging the District’s current homelessness crisis. The split between housing policy for the wealthy and housing policy for most families is making things worse.

What about that legislation offered by Councilmember Grosso? The first-time homebuyer taxes that the legislation would cut help fund the Housing Production Trust Fund—the main source of funding for affordable housing in the District. So it’s a boost for wealthy homebuyers who are doing just fine, and a cut for low- and moderate-income D.C. residents who are struggling.

Unfortunately, boosting homeownership tax programs for top earners while short-changing housing programs for everyone else is a common practice for policymakers. And no U.S. legislative body does it with such aplomb as the U.S. Congress.

One of the few resources to assist low-income households with unaffordable rents is the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program, or Section 8.  For four decades, this program has used private-sector solutions to make housing available to those in need.

This year, Congress scaled back rental assistance significantly, even though the housing market has become increasingly unaffordable for many Americans, particularly those with lower incomes. These cuts will result in 80,000 fewer households receiving help, deepening the 72,000 reduction caused by last year’s sequestration.

We know, we know. In this town of policy wonks and political spinners, these are just another set of numbers. It’s easy to gloss over them. But take a moment to imagine the human faces behind these numbers. Tens of thousands of fewer American households are receiving the help they need to sleep comfortably tonight. Fewer vouchers mean less stability for the elderly who scrape by on fixed income; for the adults who want to work; for the children who want to excel at school. It means scores more homeless on the street and in shelters. These are the human consequences of these numbers.

Some argue that the federal government can’t afford to spend any more to ensure that homeless families have a safe place to sleep. This is just ridiculous. Taxpayers are spending more to house the wealthiest among us than they are to house low-income families.

Wait a minute, can that be true?

In 2012, the Heritage Foundation put together a list of twelve low-income housing programs to highlight the size of government “welfare” spending. Those programs cost about $50 billion last year. This may seem like a large sum, but consider that the federal government also spent $211 billion last year on homeownership tax programs.  In fact, the top 10% of earners received about as much housing support from just two of these tax programs – the Mortgage Interest and Real Estate Tax Deductions – as the federal government spent on all of the housing “welfare programs” identified by Heritage. Simply put, the government spends some to help house low-income families, but it spends a lot more to help house high-income families.

There is one more key difference between high-income homeownership tax programs and low-income rental vouchers: the former are scheduled to grow 80% between 2011 and 2019. At the current rate, we’ll be spending $240 billion predominantly to help house the wealthy, while cutting thousands of vouchers for those who desperately need a safe place for their families. If this seems inefficient, inequitable, and callous, that’s because it is.

Congress has the power to change this. The lack of affordable housing is a crisis that our nation must address. In the District, we have families living in hotels, doubled-up with relatives or friends in overcrowded households, and even sleeping in cars. The same is true in communities across the country. We cannot allow this to continue.

We need policymakers to stop indulging the excesses of the wealthy at the expense of struggling families and individuals. We need policymakers to match the scale of the problem with real solutions to end homelessness in America.