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Newark Mayor and U.S. Senate hopeful Cory Booker laid out his plan to reform the U.S. prison system at a Jersey City church Wednesday.

(David Giambusso/The Star-Ledger)

JERSEY CITY — The United States wastes billions of dollars "warehousing" low-level offenders, Newark Mayor and U.S. Senate hopeful Cory Booker said today, calling for a major overhaul of America's prison system.

"If we are concerned about large government, mass incarceration represents an ever-growing expenditure while producing failed results," Booker said at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in 1968 as part of his Poor People's Campaign.

UPDATE:

DiVincenzo chides Booker for stance on private prisons

Only about a dozen people showed up to the event, including state Sen. Sandra Cunningham (D-Hudson.)

Today is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, where King gave his landmark "I Have a Dream Speech." Booker used King's memory in calling for an end to injustices in the country's prisons.

"The people of New Jersey deserve to have a criminal justice systm that is fundamentally about justice," he said. "We need to make sure that everybody is treated equally under the law."

Booker laid out a plan to provide more drug treatment, end mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders, decriminalize marijuana, increase funding for prisoner re-entry programs, and bring an end to for-profit, private prisons.

He also excoriated a prison system that incarcerates vastly higher numbers of African -Americans than whites for similar offenses.

"In New Jersey, blacks make up 14 percent of the state's population but make up over 60 percent of our state's prisons," he said. "There is something fundamentally wrong with those numbers."

Booker is the Democratic nominee to replace the late Sen. Frank Lautenebrg who died in office in June. He is battling Republican Steve Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota who has staked out a strong libertarian position in the Oct. 16 special election campaign.

Lonegan dismissed Booker’s proposals as a distraction from his record in Newark.

“Violent crime continues to surge in Newark, as illustrated by three more fatal shootings between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon,” Lonegan said. “Meanwhile, the mayor attempts to shift the focus away from his failed record with his news conference today.”

Booker today said reforming the prison system was something that small-government conservatives, like Lonegan, should get behind.

"There are billions and billions of taxpayer dollars that are being wasted," Booker said adding the U.S. spends $74 billion on incarcerating prisoners every year. "This is an issue that should be uniting all of us."

While Booker will find common ground with conservatives like Gov. Chris Christie on drug treatment programs and eliminating mandatory minimums he also articulated some more controversial stances that are likely to meet resistance.

"We need to have a structured national conversation about decriminalizing marijuana," Booker said. "Black people are 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people, despite the fact that their usage rates are no different."

Booker also called for an end to the use of private prisons such as those used in Essex County and throughout the country.

"I am fundamentally against private prisons," Booker said after his prepared remarks. "There's a profit motive to warehouse human beings. Think about what we're paying people for ...there's a perversion when we get to bondage and holding human beings."

Booker said private prisons have a financial interest in seeing prisoners held and re-arrested.

"The incentive actually is hey let's get this person out there so they come right back to priso," Booker said.

He has long-touted his work with the conservative think-tank, The Manhattan Institute, in reducing recidivism rates in Newark.

The policy proposal put out today is the first in Booker's general election contest with Lonegan. The Lonegan campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Cory Booker speaks at Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church in Jersey City, Aug. 28, 2013 5 Gallery: Cory Booker speaks at Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church in Jersey City, Aug. 28, 2013

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