Harris / Walz on criminal justice

The day I left for my vacation this summer, President Biden announced he was stepping aside and endorsed Kamala Harris. I haven’t yet had a chance to form an assessment of how this changes the trajectory of criminal justice reform work, so here are some early thoughts. 

• Until we have a strong national movement pushing to end mass incarceration, I prefer that federal policy stay out of this work, as we don’t yet have much leverage to exert pressure at the national level. So if Harris wins and her administration does not prioritize big reforms on this issue, I’m ok with that. Some solid contributions would be to continue the Biden administration’s commitment to marijuana rescheduling, nominating public defenders to be federal judges, nominating U.S. Attorney who aren’t bloodthirsty, pushing down federal funding for community based violence interruption, maintaining oversight and investigations of deadly jails and prisons, and being generally rhetorically supportive of criminal justice reform. I think all of those are likely in line with Harris’s values. 

• Kamala Harris was one of only three candidates in 2020, and the only serious candidate, who showed up at the candidate forum hosted by formerly incarcerated leaders. That bodes well. There have been past critiques of her time as prosecutor, arguing about whether it was in fact progressive. It’s true that in her time as DA, she took some positions that would not be considered forward-thinking today. That said, she has also been praised as being progressive for the time. Her leadership in that office was also several years before the movement to reform prosecution picked up real momentum. What we have seen more recently, including with the 2020 forum, is that she is moving with the times and is unlikely to go out of her way to be punitive on this issue. 

• Advocates and directly impacted leaders have voiced concern about Harris leading with the prosecutor vs. felon frame, and I agree. I hope her campaign is aware that 8% of American adults and one third of Black male American adults have a felony conviction, and that doesn’t make them bad people. Trump has done enormous numbers of terrible things, and his conviction isn’t the reason why we need to keep him out of office. 

• Tim Walz has signed a lot of very decent legislation in Minnesota on this issue. David Menschel put together a fantastic thread laying out all the bills, including reforms on marijuana, probation, clemency, making calls from prison free, abolishing life in prison for people convicted as children, and restoration of voting rights. See also the Marshall Project’s article.  Moreover, Gwen Walz has taught in prison and is a big advocate for prison education. 

Kamala Harris answering a question at the 2019 forum hosted by formerly incarcerated leaders.