Jill Stein on Crime

	Jill Stein on Crime Green Party presidential nominee; Former Challenger for MA Governor

Black Lives Matter movement is a vital & logical response

The left-leaning ticket addressed pervasive racism. Stein cast the Black Lives Matter movement as a vital and logical response to the repeated deaths of African-Americans at the hands of police and violence disproportionately claiming the lives of people of color. "We're seeing a new tragedy unfold almost on a daily basis, so this is a crisis," Stein said, clarifying the crisis is the broader continuation of "racial injustice" in society.

She called for a raft of measures to combat police violence, including civilian review boards and independent investigators. She also called for a "truth and reconciliation commission" of the kind created in post-Apartheid South Africa, where the country attempted to grapple with its racist history. She said she wanted the US to reckon with its historic and systemic racism with the goal of eliminating disparities in income and health by race.

Source: Eli Watkins, CNN, joint interview of Stein and Baraka , Aug 17, 2016

Cops violate rights of blacks in cities & Latinos at border

Q: Black Lives Matter has brought the epidemic of racist police murders to the fore. Your take?

STEIN: Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: We are facing the triple monsters of racism, militarism and extreme materialism--a.k.a. capitalism. We need to build coalitions to link racial justice to climate justice to immigrant justice and to peace and democracy. We are calling for police review boards so that communities are controlling their police and not the other way around. We demand full-time investigators readily available for communities to examine all cases of death & serious injury in police custody. It shouldn't require an act of God to get the Department of Justice to investigate a murder at the hands of the police. We've been there in the border towns where people have not only been fighting for immigrant rights, but just for plain old civil liberties. Along the border, the cops can just violate your civil liberties at will. Civil rights don't really exist.

Source: SocialistWorker.org interview of 2016 presidential hopefuls , May 9, 2016

Black Lives Matter: end racism & police militarization

The demand for deep change has grown to a fevered pitch. Young people are leading the courageous Black Lives Matter movement to end police militarization and racist violence, and calling for an end to the extrajudicial murders of so many African American children and parents--like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and more.

The fight is building against predatory mass incarceration, that holds one in three African American men hostage to our vast prison state.

Source: 2016 presidential campaign website, Jill2016.com, "Announce" , Feb 6, 2015

Judicial system makes mistakes & kills innocent people

Q: Do you support capital punishment for certain crimes?

A: No. America's experience shows that capital punishment does not effectively stop crimes from being committed. And our judicial system makes mistakes, killing people who are innocent. It's time to move beyond capital punishment, to abolish it, and to instead use life imprisonment as the most severe form of sentencing for those who cannot be trusted to live in common society.

Source: Presidential Election 2012 PVS Political Courage Test , Nov 1, 2012

Stop dumping resources into the prison-industrial complex

Repair our communities rather than dump resources into the prison-industrial complex.
Work to eliminate laws tying judge's hands with mandatory sentencing requirements.
Immediately legalize medical use of marijuana and move to permit general legal sales under suitable regulatory framework.
End the ineffective and costly War on Drugs and begin to treat drug use as a public health problem, not a criminal problem.

Source: Presidential 2012 PVS Political Courage Test , Nov 1, 2012

Incarcerating poor & minorities has become big business

Over seven million [Americans] are under "correctional supervision", 10 times greater than in 1965, as incarcerating poor people--disproportionately of color--has become big business with the failed war on drugs. And more African American males are now locked up in US prisons than were slaves in 1850. Source: Green Party 2012 People's State of the Union speech , Jan 25, 2012

Death penalty is ineffective, and also barbaric

Q: What about capital punishment?

A: It's barbaric. It's outlawed internationally in all but a few extremely repressive countries like Iran, China, and not many others. It's shameful that it continues to be performed. It's well established that mistakes are made--yet half of our states practice pre-meditated state-sponsored murder. It's also known that it's not effective. So why is it done? Revenge & retribution? That's not what our justice system is supposed to be about. It's not an effective deterrent.

Source: 2011 OnTheIssues interview with Jill Stein , Dec 21, 2011

Mandatory sentencing: ineffective & racially discriminatory

Q: What's your view on mandatory sentencing?

A: This has caused an explosion of our prison population, most of which are there for non-violent drug offenses. Mandatory sentencing has not been effective as a deterrent to crime. We can't afford it. The prison-industrial complex is making out like bandits, while very discriminatory injustice prevails. Vast number of African-American and Latinos are being locked up for minimal crimes. Lives and communities are being destroyed.