5 Things to Know About Kamala Harris’ Criminal Justice Record

President Joe Biden, who introduced the top to his re-election bid in a letter on X, has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to interchange him on the Democratic ticket.

Now, Harris’ document on prison justice — as a former prosecutor, senator and 2020 presidential candidate, in addition to vice chairman — will face new scrutiny. Lately, the nation has witnessed protests following the homicide of George Floyd, pandemic-related fluctuations in crime charges, in addition to heated rhetoric over immigration and crime. The place does Harris stand on these and different prison justice points?

Listed below are 5 issues to know:

The Biden-Harris Administration has a combined document on prison justice reform.

Over the past three and half years, the administration has promoted some prison justice reforms — however its observe document has come underneath criticism from advocates.

Following two mass shootings — one at an elementary college in Uvalde, Texas, and one other at a grocery retailer in Buffalo, New York — Biden signed into legislation the Safer Communities Act in 2022. The laws marked the primary substantial bundle of gun security legal guidelines in almost 30 years, included a brand new legislation on gun trafficking, and expanded an current legislation stopping individuals convicted of home abuse from proudly owning a gun.

However efforts on many points that Biden campaigned on — like ending the federal dying penalty and pledging to undo former President Donald Trump’s immigration insurance policies — haven’t materialized.

Harris’ early missteps on immigration might be used in opposition to her.

One in every of Harris’ first assignments as vice chairman in 2021 was a diplomatic function on the U.S. Southern border, however the rollout was pretty disorganized. Information headlines described Harris because the “level individual on immigration” — however the vice chairman doesn’t oversee the border; the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety does.

This, mixed with verbal slip-ups in press interviews, together with a viral clip from a speech in Guatemala — wherein she advised individuals who had been contemplating making the “harmful trek” to the U.S.: “Don’t come. Don’t come.” — bruised her picture.

In June, Biden introduced an govt order to bar migrants who unlawfully cross the southern border from in search of asylum. The order is conditional and goes into impact when crossings “exceed our potential to ship well timed penalties,” based on an announcement from The White Home. Advocates have decried the transfer, saying it raises the bar for asylum seekers.

Republicans have seized on Harris’ earlier flubs on immigration and for years have referred to her because the “border czar” — a jab that additionally got here up once more through the Republican Nationwide Conference.

Through the Republican conference, former presidential candidate Nikki Haley stated: “Kamala had one job. One job. And that was to repair the border. Now think about her in command of all the nation.”

Harris has billed herself as a “progressive prosecutor” — however her document is difficult.

Earlier than becoming a member of the U.S. Senate in 2017, Harris spent years as a prosecutor in California, together with because the San Francisco District Legal professional and the state legal professional normal. It’s tough to suit her time in these roles into a transparent field as a “reformer,” a “progressive” or as a “tough-on-crime” campaigner, largely as a result of these definitions have modified considerably since her prosecutorial profession started a long time in the past.

In response to Jamilah King, writing for Mom Jones in 2018, “Harris has lengthy tried to bridge the tough divide between social progressivism and the work required as a prosecutor — typically extra efficiently than others.” One attribute instance: As San Francisco district legal professional, Harris vowed to not search the dying penalty, however as California legal professional normal, her workplace argued it ought to stand.

In her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Maintain: An American Journey,” Harris noticed, “America has a deep and darkish historical past of individuals utilizing the facility of the prosecutor as an instrument of injustice.”

However critics on the left have steadily criticized Harris over a document they are saying has fueled mass incarceration.

In a first-of-its-kind city corridor hosted by and for incarcerated individuals and their family members that very same yr, Harris touted her document as a prosecutor and district legal professional. She singled out a small reentry program referred to as “Again on Monitor,” for individuals charged with first-time, nonviolent offenses, like low-level drug gross sales.

In 2020, Harris ran to the left of Biden on key points concerning incarceration and policing.

Through the 2020 presidential main, Harris labored to shed a few of her tough-on-crime picture and ran to the left of Biden on most prison justice points, together with solitary confinement, federal necessary minimal sentences and decriminalizing border crossings.

Candidates Harris and Biden additionally break up on clemency. It’s one of many few prison justice realms the place the president has the facility to make sweeping unilateral modifications by releasing individuals from federal prisons.

Harris proposed making a federal sentencing overview unit that will contemplate early launch for individuals who have served at the very least 10 years of sentences of 20 years or extra. Up to now the Biden administration has been comparably restrained on clemency, approving a smaller share of petitions than any president in latest historical past.

Harris additionally outflanked Biden on policing reform, saying she would assist a nationwide customary for police use of drive, and proposing a brand new federal board with the facility to overview police shootings. The trouble, widespread with some policing assume tanks, would operate like Nationwide Transportation Security Board critiques of airplane crashes.

After almost 4 years as vice chairman, a few of Harris’ positions could have modified.

The nationwide prison justice panorama has modified dramatically since Harris’ 2020 presidential bid and her time as a prosecutor in California. The homicide of George Floyd, elevated crime charges amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and document crossings on the southern border are just some of the occasions which have reshaped the political panorama over the past 5 years.

These occasions have pushed some voters and politicians towards endorsing “robust on crime” insurance policies, and have fueled ideological conflicts in a Democratic Celebration that — as not too long ago as 2020 — largely backed reforms to a system they noticed as overly punitive. Which means it’s much less apparent which strategy Harris would take because the social gathering’s standard-bearer.

Harris has additionally spent the previous yr rehabbing her picture following the missteps earlier in her time period, with individuals in her shut circle observing a extra assured vice chairman. Harris has made greater than 60 journeys to this point this yr, talking on points associated to race, abortion rights, and the conflict in Gaza.