New Vice President, New Criminalization Precedent
Raisah Khan, Staff Writer
The Biden-Harris Administration has been dubbed one of the most, if not the most, progressive governments that this country has ever seen. Particularly, with the first woman of color to hold the office of Vice President, constituents are wondering what specific policies will be passed to assist communities of color. However, with Vice President Harris’s “tough on crime” history as a politician, her current term begs the question: how will criminal justice reform manifest in a post-Trump America, and will it sufficiently address the pitfalls in our system that we have witnessed in the last half-century?
Day of Protest Against Police Brutality & Mass Incarceration.
Elizabeth Brossa is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Mass incarceration in the United States has been fuelled by the racially charged rhetorics of various politicians. By playing into the stereotype of people of color being inherently more dangerous, presidents such as Richard Nixon passed policies containing coded language to incarcerate these communities. Nixon himself spearheaded the “War on Drugs,” a crusade against primarily black and brown communities for the consumption of drugs, such as marijuana and crack. The disparities between crack arrests in impoverished communities versus the blind eye turned towards its counterpart drug, cocaine, in white, affluent areas, is the primary example of discrimination from the “War on Drugs.”
While there was a subsequent increase in prison population sizes under President Ronald Reagan’s term, this behavior was not limited to the Republican party. Biden himself assisted President Bill Clinton in passing the 1994 crime bill, an initiative that was intended to compete with the Republican party’s mission of cracking down on crime. Biden has since tried to justify his part in authoring the bill, but the reality is that this policy played a substantial role in mass incarceration in the 1990s. Prior to this, Biden was firmly in support of various “tough on crime” acts that would increase imprisonment for drug use and heighten racial disparities in sentencing for drug-related crimes. The phrase “law and order” was and still is continually used to incarcerate people of color in this country, shifting the narrative to create an “us vs. them” mindset.
With Joe Biden’s direct role in amplifying the era of mass incarceration, constituents have turned to Kamala Harris in hopes of a different result. However, her history in this field is not entirely promising. Looking back to her roots in local communities in the Bay Area, her truancy policies stand out as exceptionally harsh towards unserved individuals. Harris implemented a measure that would arrest parents for their children having a certain number of unexcused absences. This ended up cycling more people of color into the system, which further exacerbated the cycle of poverty instead of addressing the root cause of the issue. As a prosecutor, district attorney, and state attorney general, she has defended the necessity for law enforcement despite many Californian’s concerns on issues such as police brutality and mass incarceration. In response to constituents, she did advocate for prison diversion programs and racial bias training within the police force. She stated that the intention behind the truancy campaign was to redirect parents to support and resources, but those effects were not often seen. She especially shifted the narrative after she announced her ticket for office, labeling herself as a progressive prosecutor.
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris speaking with supporters at the annual West Des Moines Democratic Party Summer picnic at Legion Park in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
During the 2020 election season, her platform definitely shifted further left, with large promises of reform. Her campaign was met with skepticism, but Kamala supporters argue that she has shown more of a push for criminal justice reform during her tenure in the Senate. Many people defend her by saying that her “law and order” phase was merely playing along party lines to eventually run for higher office. Harris has also been held under a magnifying glass as a woman of color, as US politics has historically been dominated by primarily white males. Progressive individuals in the United States, however, have been privy to dishing out criticism regardless of which party a candidate is in, and they have labeled Kamala as “Cop-mala”, indicative of her being a sell-out to her original heritage.
Despite both sides of the argument, the largest red flag in Harris’s records is the sheer number of contradictions within it. Her training programs to reduce racial bias through police training were countered with a refusal to look into officer shootings. She defended the death penalty in the California Supreme Court, but she refused to administer the death penalty in certain cases. She started the “Back on Track” initiative to get drug offenders jobs and worked against California’s “three strikes'' law, but she did not work as attorney general to actively reduce prison populations. Additionally, she sometimes pushed to keep people in prisons even after they were shown to be innocent.
When looking out for comprehensive criminal justice reform under this new administration at the local, state, and federal levels, we should look at a few key contentious issues that disproportionately affect people of color. The first step is to unlearn the rhetoric that has plagued the past few decades, recognizing that many of these people who commit crime lack ill intent and are merely victims of a broken system. Ideally, the root cause of crime should be addressed through the investment into poverty, education, and counseling services. Furthermore, the overflowing prison population in the United States must be reduced in whatever way possible, especially in light of the increased health risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. State governments should align with the values of criminal justice reform undertaken in these next four years so that this issue can be addressed at the state level. For example, states can follow the actions of certain counties, such as Los Angeles County and Santa Clara County, across the country to remove or reduce the cash bail system in its entirety. Other considerations that have been endorsed by major civil rights organizations include the legalization of marijuana, the abolishment of the death penalty, and ceasing the use of solitary confinement.
As of February 2021, the Biden Administration has already ended private prison contracts. Although this is a huge step forward in mitigating the detrimental effects of the Prison Industrial Complex, states still have full agency to utilize private prison contracts, which is where the majority come from. We can only hope that states recognize the legitimacy of this action and follow suit. Furthermore, Biden has created a hefty promise of reducing prison populations by more than 50%. This would include a $20 billion grant program for states to undertake the initiative, including addressing the underlying causes of crime through various policy measures such as public education investment.
As with any new administration, we should continue to proceed with caution, but we should also remain cognizant of progress where it is made. It is important to strengthen the democratic party; while constituents should stay critical of whatever governance is held in this country, we should recognize the benefits of having this party in power, especially over the alternative.