Kamala Harris’ Record on Criminal Justice: What to Know

President Joe Biden, who introduced the tip 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’ report on legal justice — as a former prosecutor, senator and 2020 presidential candidate, in addition to vp — will face new scrutiny. In recent times, 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 legal justice points?

Listed below are 5 issues to know:

The Biden-Harris Administration has a blended report on legal justice reform.

During the last three and half years, the administration has promoted some legal justice reforms — however its monitor report has come beneath criticism from advocates.

Following two mass shootings — one at an elementary faculty 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 practically 30 years, included a brand new legislation on gun trafficking, and expanded an present legislation stopping folks convicted of home abuse from proudly owning a gun.

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

Harris’ early missteps on immigration may very well be used towards her.

One in every of Harris’ first assignments as vp 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 vp 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 — through which she instructed 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 looking for asylum. The order is conditional and goes into impact when crossings “exceed our means to ship well timed penalties,” in response to 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.

Throughout 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 the whole nation.”

Harris has billed herself as a “progressive prosecutor” — however her report 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 common. 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 many years in the past.

In accordance with Jamilah King, writing for Mom Jones in 2018, “Harris has lengthy tried to bridge the difficult 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 loss of life penalty, however as California legal professional common, 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 report they are saying has fueled mass incarceration.

In a first-of-its-kind city corridor hosted by and for incarcerated folks and their family members that very same yr, Harris touted her report as a prosecutor and district legal professional. She singled out a small reentry program referred to as “Again on Monitor,” for folks 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.

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

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

Harris proposed making a federal sentencing evaluation unit that may think about early launch for individuals who have served a minimum of 10 years of sentences of 20 years or extra. To date the Biden administration has been comparably restrained on clemency, approving a smaller share of petitions than any president in current historical past.

Harris additionally outflanked Biden on policing reform, saying she would assist a nationwide customary for police use of pressure, and proposing a brand new federal board with the facility to evaluation police shootings. The hassle, standard with some policing assume tanks, would perform like Nationwide Transportation Security Board evaluations of airplane crashes.

After practically 4 years as vp, a few of Harris’ positions might have modified.

The nationwide legal 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 report crossings on the southern border are only a few 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 Social gathering that — as just lately as 2020 — largely backed reforms to a system they noticed as overly punitive. Meaning it’s much less apparent which method Harris would take because the occasion’s standard-bearer.

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