Kamala Harris’s controversial record on criminal justice, explained (2020)
Kamala Harris’s controversial record on criminal justice, explained (2020)
Harris has characterized herself as a reformer. But some critics disagree.
Whatever Harris did as a prosecutor seems reasonable given both the context of the time she during which was a prosecutor, and her overall political alignment. I would rather have a progressive presidential candidate like Bernie (too late), or AOC (maybe 2028 or later). But choosing Harris means that the overall “liberal” agenda stays on the table
Some highlights from the article
Harris, as part of her previous presidential campaign, also released a criminal justice reform plan that seeks to scale back incarceration, end the death penalty and solitary confinement, ban private prisons, and get rid of cash bail. Biden also backs a fairly aggressive criminal justice reform plan, despite his own mixed record on criminal justice issues.
A close examination of Harris’s record shows it’s filled with contradictions. She pushed for programs that helped people find jobs instead of putting them in prison, but also fought to keep people in prison even after they were proved innocent. She refused to pursue the death penalty against a man who killed a police officer, but also defended California’s death penalty system in court. She implemented training programs to address police officers’ racial biases, but also resisted calls to get her office to investigate certain police shootings.
But what seem like contradictions may reflect a balancing act. Harris’s parents worked on civil rights causes, and she came from a background well aware of the excesses of the criminal justice system — but in office, she played the role of a prosecutor and California’s lawyer. She started in an era when “tough on crime” politics were popular across party lines — but she rose to national prominence as criminal justice reform started to take off nationally. She had an eye on higher political office as support for criminal justice reform became de rigueur for Democrats — but she still had to work as California’s top law enforcement official.
Harris also pushed for more systemic reforms. Her most successful program as district attorney, “Back on Track,” allowed first-time drug offenders, including drug dealers, to get a high school diploma and a job instead of prison time. Adams, Harris’s previous spokesperson, noted that the program started in 2005, “when most prosecutors were using a ‘tough on crime’ approach.”
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From what I can make out, she's got some hits and some misses in her history, but overall a pretty progressive record.
Edit: By "pretty progressive", I mean relative to the arternatives and what's to be expected from any Democrat. Which is to say of course not nearly progressive enough and tainted with bad choices. But certainly good enough to vote for instead of Trump.
She covered up that a state crime lab employee was falsifying evidence leading to hundreds of false convictions. She opposed police reform including opposing body cameras. Her office, she claims without her knowledge, argued that prisoners eligible for parole shouldn't be released from prisons so overcrowded that a judge ruled them cruel and unusual because it would reduce the availability of prison labor. She argued on two separate occasions that prisoners who had had their convictions overturned on the basis of actual innocence shouldn't be released from prison because they hadn't filed the motion for release quickly enough.
Her record is staunchly pro establishment and she has participated in acts of overt corruption to maintain the status quo.
The other guy rapes children and wants to shoot protestors with live ammunition
Yep, bad choice and worse choice. She hasn't been nominated yet though so there is a slim hope for the Dems choice to improve. Hopefully there will be people vocal about finding someone who's record is more progressive before the convention.
Good to know raping children isn’t a red line for you, or at least that stopping the end of democracy in the US and mass deportations and etc is… well… idk, I need to know a little more about the alternative before I come out against that stuff.
Wanting a progressive Dem nominee is pro Trump?
Oh, I thought you were shitting on the presumptive nominee in a fashion that’s suddenly started coming out of the woodwork in a small but notable grouping of posts and comments, which I’m sure will grow to a torrent by a few days from now and not let up until the election, now that it’s no longer relevant to shit on Biden relentlessly.
Were you supporting a progressive candidate or alternate strategy for the Democrats and I overlooked it? That actually (very seriously) does sound like a good thing, yes; IDK whose messages I was reading instead that gave me the idea you were doing that other thing.
I've been shitting on her the same way since Biden picked her for VP. I was hoping for Stacy Abrams then. I don't have a specific candidate I like right now because I think Bernie and Elizabeth Warren both have the same age issue, a younger candidate probably has a better chance. I wouldn't hate Hakeem Jefferies as the nominee, I think Mark Kelly has a good chance of beating Trump. I like Cory Booker and think Tammy Duckworth would be an interesting candidate.
I don't have a specific candidate I like right now
Ah, okay, so just trying to help the Democrats lose, then, by instilling a general malaise against the current candidate with (only after some prompting) only the vaguest of unrealistic hand waving towards something that might be a solution but in practice will not be.
Well, good luck with it I guess. Have fun.
Thanks to both of you.
This is what I wanted: more information (actual, not FauxNews) about this person.
How bad she's been, how she's played the political ropes, her origins. Things she's stood up for.
All of it!
I know if she wins candidacy, I'll vote for her. Because fuck another 4 years of the self aggrandizing Putin puppet.
I'd like to know what I can about the lesser evil I'll be supporting.
How bad she’s been
The article shows her performance as a PA is actually really good all things considered. Very compassionate where she can affect change and does her job well otherwise (during a tough on crime period in society)
Keeping people in jail that have had their case thrown out is bad, in my book.
She's done some good. She's also done some detestable things.
Hope she'll listen to Bernie, though the voting record shows she votes closer to him than anyone else does. Hope!
She isn’t remotely progressive. There’s a long list of very problematic stuff she did while AG which the other commentator covered in part but there’s also:
-She’s a blatant supporter of Israel's Genocide
The other guys wants to “deport” every single illegal immigrant.
Apparatus like that, once set up, usually finds applications which weren’t in the planning documents when they were presented for public consumption.
Honestly? Harris is not my favorite pick. But pretending that voting against Trump needs some kind of evaluation against the other alternative is pure poppycock.
counterpunch has extreme left bias according to media bias fact check site
Though professing to support a two-state solution, Harris has repeatedly refused to make any distinction between criticisms of the Israeli occupation and colonization in the West Bank and attacks on Israel itself.
That doesn't prove in ANY WAY that she is a blatant supporter of genocide, jesus fucking christ.
Harris has repeatedly refused to make any distinction between criticisms of the Israeli occupation
an easily proven lie
that article even quotes the intercept
Unlike some of her counterparts in the Senate, she has not publicly made any demands of Israel or Netanyahu regarding the human rights of Palestinians.
** U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris bluntly called out Israel on Sunday for not doing enough to ease a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza as the Biden administration faces increasing pressure to rein in its close ally while it wages war with Hamas militants.**
Harris, speaking in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where state troopers beat U.S. civil rights marchers nearly six decades ago, called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept a deal to release hostages in return for a 6-week cessation of hostilities. But she directed the bulk of her comments at Israel in what appeared to be the sharpest rebuke yet by a senior leader in the U.S. government over the conditions in the coastal enclave.
"People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane and our common humanity compels us to act," Harris said at an event to commemorate the 59th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" in Alabama. "The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses," Harris said. Her comments reflected intense frustration, if not desperation, within the U.S. government about the war, which has hurt President Joe Biden with left-leaning voters as he seeks re-election this year.
oh but she totally is blatantly supporting the genocide!!!!
edit: yes, downvote me for bringing you inconvenient truths that don't fall within your little narrative.
She’s a part of the administration that hasn’t stopped weapon shipments to the country committing the genocide. It doesn’t matter if she has given some meaningless lines on the tragedy going on if there’s been next to nothing done to stop it.
She with Biden came out and said the US will not impose conditions on support for Israel. The country committing the genocide. How is that not blatant support?
Between that, her ties to AIPAC I don’t see how anyone can say she’ll be a meaningful improvement. Sorry to tell you “inconvenient truths that don’t fall within your little narrative”
...A month after the Hamas massacre. Might want to find more recent evidence to argue with.
Unless you have recent examples that hard counter any of the below any reasonable person should see isn’t going to suddenly change. When the uncommitted movement had over 100k votes in a Michigan (a swing state) that’s just shooting yourself in the foot if you’re trying to beat trump.
She has clear a history of pushing against any international organization trying to hold Israel accountable on any level. Unless she comes out and clearly distances herself from Biden’s actions why should we think she’ll be any different?
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Harris set a tone for her posture on Israel as a senator when she co-sponsored legislation in 2017 condemning former President Barack Obama’s decision to abstain from vetoing a UN Security Council Resolution critical of Israel. The resolution, which was adopted in December 2016, stated that “the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”
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During the 2020 presidential race, the New York Times asked Harris if she thought Israel meets international standards of human rights. “Overall, yes,” she replied.
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In Harris’s first call with Netanyahu after becoming vice president, on March 3, 2021, she told the Israeli leader that the U.S. was opposed to the International Criminal Court investigating alleged Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians. Harris and Netanyahu “noted their respective governments’ opposition to the International Criminal Court’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel,” according to a White House readout of the call.
Again, all you're doing is saying 'she supported an ally way back in the past before it started doing warcrimes' and not supporting your argument that she would continue supplying aid to Israel despite warcrimes.
Also one of her jobs as VP is to support the President's decisions.
Again, all you're doing is saying 'she supported an ally way back in the past before it started doing warcrimes'
Israel has been doing it for decades, the illegal occupation has been happening since 1967. They’ve been “mowing the lawn” every couple years and arbitrarily detaining Palestinians the entire time. The only thing that’s recent is the speed at which they’re killing the Palestinians.
My issue is that they’re considered an ally of the US at all, that policy stance was terrible the entire time, just because some people only started paying attention recently doesn’t mean it’s a recent development.
Edit:
Good luck finding a politician who will support abandoning the Israeli alliance that would have a chance.
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MBFC also rates the Jerusalem Post as credible, which anyone who's read the Post for any significant amount of time knows is a lie.