Criminal Justice
I was looking at the Issues pages of both Bernie and Hillary today. Hillary has a Criminal Justice issues page. I didn't see one for Bernie, but I did see a Racial Justice page. So what do these two pages together have to offer as ideas for justice for all?
From Hillary's page, we should:
End Mass Incarceration
Reform Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
Help rehabilitate individuals leaving prison to better reintegrate into society
These are all good ideas. Mass incarcerations and minimum sentencing seem to me to have a lot to do with each other, especially when drugs are involved. Helping people re-enter society should definitely be high on the list to prevent people from committing the same crime twice, which is a risk when they have trouble due to being outcast or prevented from quality jobs. Clinton mentions we have 25% of the world's imprisoned population, and that's a big problem. I like her ideas that we should have national data collected on policing and national guidelines for use of force.
Hillary also mentions diverting attention away from drug use and toward violent crime, an emphasis on rehabilitation for non-violent offenders, and a reduction of minimum sentences. Great stuff!
Then let's throw Bernie's ideas into the mix.
Bernie's page is a little less structured than Hillary's. It really reads more like an essay than a bullet point list, but it's got some of the same stuff. An end to mandatory minimum sentencing, for one, and I like the fact that Bernie specifically points out that these kinds of sentencing hit minorities the worst, often because of non-violent drug use.
Bernie really hammers that point home by emphasizing how black males are six times more likely to spend time in prison. An amazing statistic! And that blacks and Latinos are 57% of the prison population. Bernie moves on to say something similar to Hillary. Both want a pardon and reformation system for getting people back into society.
I think Hillary is a little more detailed and structured on some of these points, but Bernie brings up something that Hillary didn't (from what I could see): the financial incentives given for police abuse. Bernie specifically brings up civil forfeitures and how hard it can be for people to get their property back. A great point.
Both Bernie and Hillary address marijuana. Hillary says she wants it reduced to Schedule II while Bernie says he wants it off the federal list of outlawed drugs. Hillary wants it to be used for medical purposes while Bernie wants it off the list of outlawed drugs completely. This is probably their biggest point of difference in their outline of justice reforms, at least from what I saw in my overview of their issues pages. Hillary has a separate page about race in America while Bernie integrated the race issue into a justice page. I think combined, you see lots of areas of overlap from their approach to this topic.
Comments
Ending Mandatory Minimums
Hillary wabts to "reform" mandatory minimums. Bernie wants to end mandatory minimums. This is a monumental difference. The only acceptable reform of mandatory minimums is to prohibit them entirely.
The only purpose mandatory minimums serve is injustice and excessive incarceration. There is no legitimate rationale for mandatory minimums, the only purpose they serve is excessive incarceration. The only benefactors of mandatory minimums are the myriad subsidiaries of The Prison Industrial Complex.
How do you "help rehabilitate individuals leaving prison to better reintegrate into society"? Offer them free education and/or job training? Require "lifeskills" courses and job search courses as a condition of parole or probation?
Those may sound like terrific ideas, but all they accomplish is extending the reach of Prisons Inc. outside the prison walls into the public sphere, and increase the threat of re-incarceration.
In California, and I presume other states, probation is colloquially known as life on the installment plan.
Mass Incarceration. Don't mend it, end it.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
I feel
that this conclusion:
Can only be arrived at if you want to, rather than considering multiple ways that this could be achieved positively.
Sanders takes a much stronger line . . .
on a fundamental and corrupting issue: for-profit prisons. If you want to talk about fundamental reforms, this is a big one.
Clinton over her career -- like many Dems -- has had a good relationship with the for-profit prison industry. This past Fall, she decided maybe it was a good idea to return the donations she had received in 2015, but, she still has bundlers who work for the industry.
e.g. as reported this Fall:
The campaign finance issue cuts across policy in a big way. The saying is that "personnel is policy" and there is a very high probability, that if Clinton is elected people with lobbying ties to the for-profit prison industry will be in a position to influence and set policy. The fact that she appointed a bunch of lobbyists to the DNC drafting committee for the party platform underscores this reality. Follow the money, and judge politicians by what they do, discount what they say.
The problem with hrc
is she says we (should) Bernie says (we will) ! Everything she proposes is half-assed at best. She lies and flip flops so much none of her stances can be believed.we all know what she is capable of and I don't mean that in a good way. BTW most of the issues you refer to were Bernies from the beginning and unlike hrc not when he thought it was popular.
Another clue Hillary needs to get:
Somebody really ought to let her know that violent crime has been falling for 20 years in this country. By a lot.
I also didn't like her response to the BLM protester who confronted her on her "predator" remark. I think that tells us where Hillary imagines all that violent crime is, and who she thinks is doing it.
Frankly, I wish she'd put some effort in prosecuting white-collar crime. Y'know, like bankers, or international arms dealers, or corporations moving offshore.
Oops! But that'd be her friends and family.
“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett
I assume those same prison lobbyists...
constrain HRC's willingness to remove cannabis from the schedule of controlled substances; lots of LEA and prison $$$ is lost if prohibition ends. Yet another dreadful sellout.