Here’s what presidential candidates’ websites say about criminal justice reform

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from WaPo:

The Gold Stars:

Martin O’Malley

By far and away, the most thorough, thoughtful, and detailed analysis of criminal justice issues is on the website of Martin O’Malley. “Criminal Justice Reform” is the first item listed under O’Malley’s “Issues” page. On the criminal justice page itself, O’Malley lays out several core principles, with key policies he’d push for each...pdf

Whatever you think of these policies — I agree with many; I have some problems with others — it’s clear that O’Malley has both given a lot of thought to criminal justice reform and plans to make the issue a key part of his campaign. It almost reads like a wish list of policies reform groups have been advocating for years. The section on policing in particular shows that O’Malley has followed the national debate closely, and has a deep and nuanced understanding of the issues at stake...more


Hillary Clinton

Despite the splash she made in her speech on criminal justice a few months ago, the issue doesn’t get prominent placement on her campaign site. Clinton’s policy proposals are roughly divided into what she calls “the Four Fights.” Criminal justice is unintuitively lumped into the “Strengthening America’s Families” fight, and shows up at the very bottom of that page, under the heading “A balanced criminal justice system.” It’s about 500 words long.

Clinton hits some buzzwords — Ferguson, Charleston, Baltimore, mass incarceration — but there are few specific proposals. It’s more about vague generalizations...

The only specific policy Clinton endorses on her site are body cameras for police... Yet paltry as it is, it’s still in the top tier...more

Bernie Sanders

Sanders’s “Issues” page makes no mention of criminal justice at all. For the candidate widely described as a socialist, and who is probably well to the left of anyone else in the field (at least among the two major parties), discussion of criminal justice is surprisingly hard to find. I finally did a Google search for “incarceration” on the URL for Sanders’s site and found a a blog post about a speech he gave in Des Moines and a video and the transcript of a speech he gave to the National Urban League. The latter includes some discussion of police militarization, racial bias, incarceration, and root causes of crime. It also includes some vague policy positions — support for body cameras, “moving away” from police militarization, opposition to private prisons, investing in community policing. But it’s still pretty vague, and you have to go through some effort to find it. Sanders also tends to talk about incarceration by lamenting how few bankers and Wall Street traders are in prison, which is more about economic populism than about reforming the courts, cops, and prisons.

It all has the whiff of a candidate who was thrust into this discussion, rather than a candidate who took it up willingly...period


read article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/06/heres-what-presidential-candidates-websites-say-about-criminal-justice-reform/?postshare=6381438998093867

[FSogol]

1. K&R. n/t

[ismnotwasm]

2. K&R

I hope Hillary improves on this issue. O'Malley is awesome.

[SonderWoman]

3. This may not be a popular opinion, but:

Bernie needs a new campaign manager. His site is vague and offers no policy proposals, not even much in terms of accomplishments. His site looks great but looks like someone who is contemplating a presidential run in a few months, not someone who is already months in to a campaign. He needs to start releasing policy proposals, I can't even find his free college proposal. Perhaps he needs more staff?

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. Thanks for bringing this great information

that illuminates the differences between the candidates on this issue.

[NCTraveler]

5. Great op.

It says so much about our candidates.

[Cheese Sandwich]

6. We should compare and contrast Sanders vs. O'Malley criminal justice records sometime

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8. here's the thing

...as mayor, Sanders presided over a city with less than a dozen murders a year. There is no comparison to be had between Baltimore and Burlington, where he served. Before he was elected mayor, O'Malley was both a criminal defense attorney and a state prosecutor.

Sanders has never been in a position where there was a significant consequence to his stands on criminal justice or crime. At least not in the same context as O'Malley where his decisions directly impacted citizens in the state where he held office.

I'm more inclined to discuss and compare policy where the two are on a relatively equal footing; policies which intend to impact policing, incarceration, and enforcement efforts in the future. While I think its certainly valid to discuss actual policies O'Malley implemented in the past, to compare those to the efforts of a legislator in Congress or the Senate isn't a fair comparison.

Sanders can talk until sundown about what he would do if faced with a city leading the nation in homicides and rivaling in other violent crimes, but it's too convenient to cast him in the role of a critic without having to make those choices as mayor or governor of a large, often violent metropolis or governor of a large state with extensive metropolitan issues to manage.

So, I'm comfortable comparing what both intend to do in office as president. I'd appreciate more than speeches and statements from Sanders in this regard in order to make a comprehensive comparison and judgment.

[Cheese Sandwich]

10. Bernie Sanders supported "criminal justice reform" before it ever needed reforming

Who were the people that led us down the road to mass incarceration and over-policing in the first place? There is plenty of blame to go around but much of the blame does lay with so-called New Democrats including the Clintons whose policies escalated the problem.

Don't take my word for it. Ask Bill Clinton:

Bill Clinton says he made mass incarceration issue worse: http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/bill-clinton-1994-crime-bill/

Bill Clinton concedes role in mass incarceration: http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/06/politics/bill-clinton-crime-prisons-hillary-clinton/

Bill Clinton admits his crime law made mass incarceration ‘worse’: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/clinton-admits-his-crime-bill-made-mass-incarceration-worse

And guess who else was responsible for increasing the climate of police terror against poor people, especially people of color? That's right, big city "liberal" mayors like Martin O'Malley. O'Malley thought it would be a successful political posture to be all tough on crime.

So he had a policy of mass arrest that created a lot of distrust between the police and the people of Baltimore. Tens of thousands of black men were swept up in mass arrests, held for days and released without charges, sometimes held in filthy overcrowded conditions.

O'Malley was in a position to make these choices, these policies, to use his judgement, and he chose poorly. He thought the way to fight crime was to arrest innocent black men and give them criminal records.

Thousands of lives were wrecked. And it escalated a culture of abusive policing and hostility to the community that led up to the murder of Freddie Gray and the riots of 2015.

Bernie Sanders wasn't Mayor of Baltimore so he didn't have to deal with big city policing. What might he have done in the same position? We can only guess that he would have done things differently, based on his statements during the same time period.

I understand you only want to talk about the things you want to talk about, and frame the issue the way you prefer, only talking about what is posted on the candidates's websites as of this week, or what they say about the future.

In my opinion Martin O'Malley had better be coming out in favor of policing reform because he was one of the people who helped create the problem that needs to be reformed in the first place.

[Live and Learn]

11. +1 nt

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12. is it too much for you to stick to the subject of the op?

...the issue raised was the plans provided on the candidate's policy pages; actual plans provided in this campaign.

Going on and on about what he did in Congress is meaningless, especially to people who visit his site. You really expect them to dig through his record in Congress to find out what he actually intends to do on the issue as president? That's not only a ridiculous expectation, it's assuming something that's not even been expressed by Sanders.

Where has he said that he'd implement every bill he's supported in Congress, every statement he's made over the years? Where? That's something you've invented to cover for the lack of a comprehensive plan for voters to actually measure his rhetoric and promises made from the podium.

Face it. Sanders doesn't have a record to compare with O'Malley on criminal justice because he has no actual experience implementing any of his rhetoric or sponsorship of bills in Congress.

Your claim that 'O'Malley was one of the people who helped create the problem that needs to be reformed in the first place' doesn't pass the smell test. It's as if you believe criminal justice reform only covers the ONE policy of arrests for petty crimes that O'Malley has been criticized for.

If you read his actual plan (not Bill Clinton's, wtf?) you'll see that criminal justice reform actually covers a wide and extensive range of policies and remedies which dwarf your obsession with the ONE policy of arrests for crimes like loitering and public drunkenness which was implemented in Baltimore over a decade ago.

Apparently, there's no concern at all from you for the other very important and consequential measures outlined. It's all about hammering O'Malley with this dead issue of arrests for petty crimes, as if that represented the totality of his policing efforts. The notion is so ludicrous I'm surprised you take yourself seriously presenting it in defense of Sander's negligence in presenting an actual plan in this campaign.

I'm going to address this ONCE, and then you can do your ridiculous dance around the issues involved.


..pretending to care about the black lives in Baltimore - crying crocodile tears about arrests for petty crimes - ignores the lives saved and defended against the rampant violence O'Malley found and acted against in those predominately black neighborhoods. Those same black residents in those neighborhoods you're pretending to care so much about supported O'Malley repeatedly and overwhelmingly in each of his successive elections to office.

What critics fail to acknowledge is the 'abusive' impact on communities which resulted from unabated violent criminal activity in those communities as a consequence of open-air drug markets and the categories of crimes which plagued residents. Most of those arrests under 'zero-tolerance' were for petty offenses and mostly un-prosecuted and dealt with by issuing citations instead of criminal prosecution.

Conflating those with the issues of violent crime and police brutality, as critics seek to do, misrepresents the challenges those communities faced and the impact of those arrests for loitering, public drunkenness, and other petty offenses which were found unconstitutional by courts. Little attention is given to sharp reductions in violent crime during his term, or the lives saved by policing efforts related to THOSE violent offenses.

There should be an equal and fair concern for the lives impacted by the criminality and killings which made Baltimore one of the most violent and deadly cities in America before he took office. In that effort to reclaim communities from the open-air drug markets which plagued the lives of citizens forced to work, school, and live there, the totality of O'Malley's administration's policing efforts reduced violent crime by over 40% -well above the national average decrease at the time of 11%. That represents 100's of lives saved. He oversaw and fought for the ending of the death penalty, commuting sentences still on death row; signed into law the decriminalization of small amounts of pot; increased drug treatment, reclaiming lives in the process...

His police dept. changed the way incidents of police misconduct was reported and handled by establishing an active review board and a hotline for reporting police abuse or misconduct. Under his term there were over 100 'reverse integrity' stings of police conducted a year. They fully staffed the civilian review board including detectives on the board to investigate claims against police. They used technology to flag abusive officers who racked up complaints.

As O'Malley said in a response to criticisms, if those had been white-majority communities, there would be no question of the swift and thorough response to drug-related crime and violence which threatened and cost black lives, many young black lives. During his time as governor, recidivism was cut significantly, and incarceration rates were actually REDUCED in his terms to 20 year lows; and voting rights were restored to 52,000 individuals with felonies.

When it comes to O'Malley and policing, I'll take Ben Jealous's word over your's:

Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the national NAACP who worked with O’Malley when Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, credited him for supporting a civilian review board as mayor and for a sharp drop in police shootings that occurred during that time. Jealous said O’Malley’s “mass incarceration” police strategy is “a separate issue” than police brutality, and “a conversation for a different day."

O'Malley has a far more extensive record in office than Sanders (including as Mayor to Sander's term in that position) of successfully ACTING on the progressive issues he advocates; making real lives better and not just shouting about them from a podium.

[Comrade Grumpy]

7. You forgot Jim Webb, who was a champion of criminal justice reform while in the Senate.

https://www.webb2016.com/criminal-justice-reform/

Criminal Justice Reform

This is not a political issue; it is a leadership issue. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Since I doubt we have the most evil people in the world, many now agree that we’re doing something wrong. Millions of our citizens are either in prison or under the supervision of the criminal justice system. During my time in the Senate we worked exhaustively to examine every component of this process, from point of apprehension to length of sentencing to the elements of life in prison, including prison administration, and to the challenge of re-entering society and hopefully living productive lives. When one applies for a job, the stigma of having been in prison is like a tattoo on your forehead. In many cases, prison life itself creates scars and impediments that can only be remediated through structured re-entry programs. Millions of Americans are now in this situation, many of them non-violent offenders who went to prison due to drug use. To those who wonder whether we can or should put such programs into place, my answer is this: Do you want these former offenders back on the street coming after your money or your life, or do you want them in a job, making money and having a life?

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9. was that it, his plan in it's entirety?

...okay.

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13. »

[Skwmom]

14. Campaign plans do not impress me in the least.

Year after year we hear about detailed campaign plans. But after the election, the person voted in office acts like they never existed. Looking at Sanders and his history I trust him to do the right thing.

[Recursion]

15. Also, Chafee makes a brief statement about personal and civil liberties

Which at least plausibly falls under the criminal justice rubric. He also seems to favor "commonsense" gun control.