Senator Bernie Sanders releases criminal justice reform plan under banner "Justice and Safety for All"

A number prominent candidates for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination, in particular Joe Biden, Cory Booker and Pete Buttigeig, have put forth major criminal justice reform plans in recent months.  The latest to join their ranks in Senator Bernie Sanders, who today released this extended plan with lots of reform rhetoric and more than a few notable concrete proposals.  I recommend reading the full plan, and here are excerpts with just some of the some rhetoric and some particulars that especially caught my attention:

Due to the historical legacy of institutional racism in this country, mass incarceration disportionately falls on the shoulders of black and brown people in America. In fact, black Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white Americans, and even though people use drugs like marijuana at roughly the same rates across all races, black Americans are nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Americans. These disparities pervade every aspect of the criminal justice system. Black Americans, and especially young black men, are more likely to be stopped by the police, subjected to excessive force, arrested, and jailed than whites.

When Bernie is president, we will finally make the deep and structural investments to rebuild the communities that mass incarceration continues to decimate. We must move away from an overly-punitive approach to public safety and start focusing on how to safeguard our communities, prevent the conditions that lead to arrests, and rehabilitate people who have made mistakes....

Right to Counsel

In 1963, the Supreme Court decided Gideon v. Wainwright, guaranteeing all felony defendants counsel, yet today 90 to 95 percent of criminal cases are decided by a plea deal, too often without the defendant playing an active role.

Across the United States, more than 80 percent of felony defendants cannot afford a privately retained lawyer and have to rely on state-administered public defenders or court-appointed counsel. Yet in states across the country, public defenders have far too many clients and too few resources to offer adequate representation. Despite the often heroic efforts of public defenders and other appointed counsel, the workload makes it impossible to provide the quality of representation that each defendant deserves.  77 percent of black Americans and 73 percent of Latinos in state prisons had a public defender or court-appointed counsel, yet 75 percent of county-based public defender offices have exceeded the maximum recommended limit of cases received per attorney.

America must not be a country where only the rich enjoy the protections of the Fifth Amendment. We must not have a court system that offers “the best justice money can buy.” We must guarantee all Americans their Sixth Amendment rights.

As president, Bernie will:

• Triple national spending on indigent defense, to $14 billion annually.
• After a review of current salaries and workload, set a minimum starting salary for all public defenders.
• Create and set a national formula to assure populations have a minimum number of public defenders to assure full access to constitutional right to due process.
• Establish federal guidelines and goals for a right to counsel, including policies that reduce the number of cases overall.
• Create a federal agency to provide support and oversight for state public defense services.
• Authorize the Department of Justice to take legal action against jurisdictions that are not meeting their Sixth Amendment obligations.
• Cancel all existing student debt and cancel any future student debt for public defenders through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program....

Ending Mass Incarceration and Excessive Sentencing....

As president, Bernie will:

• Abolish the death penalty.
• Reverse the Trump administration’s guidance on the use of death penalty drugs with the goal of ending the death penalty at the state level.
• Stop excessive sentencing with the goal of cutting the incarcerated population in half.
• End mandatory sentencing minimums.
• Reinstate a federal parole system and end truth-in-sentencing. People serving long sentences will undergo a “second look” process to make sure their sentence is still appropriate.
• End “three strikes” laws. No one should spend their life behind bars for committing minor crimes, even if they commit several of them.
• Invigorate and expand the compassionate release process so that people with disabilities, the sick and elderly are transitioned out of incarceration whenever possible.
• Expand the use of sentencing alternatives, including community supervision and publicly funded halfway houses. This includes funding state-based pilot programs to establish alternatives to incarceration, including models based on restorative justice and free access to treatment and social services.
• Revitalize the executive clemency process by creating an independent clemency board removed from the Department of Justice and placed in White House....
• Legalize marijuana and vacate and expunge past marijuana convictions, and ensure that revenue from legal marijuana is reinvested in communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs....
• Raise the threshold for when drug charges are federalized, as federal charges carry longer sentences....
• Institute a full review of the current sentencing guidelines and end the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine.

 

A few of many prior recent related posts:

• Senator (and Prez candidate) Cory Booker introduces "Next Step Act of 2019" with wide array of sentencing and criminal justice reforms 
• Senator Cory Booker sets out "Restoring Justice Initiative" focused on providing clemency relief to thousands of federal offenders 
• Senator Cory Booker proposes bold "second look" resentencing law 
• Mayor Pete Buttigeig's new "Douglass Plan" hit lots of criminal justice reform high points
• Former Veep Joe Biden releases extended "Plan for Strengthening America’s Commitment to Justice"
• An effective critical review of some Prez candidates' new criminal justice reform plans