|
Marianne Williamson on Crime
Author & Democratic Presidential Challenger
|
|
|
Punishment instead of rehabilitation leads to more crime
In America, our approach to managing violence and crime has typically trended towards largely ineffective punitive approaches, ignoring the underlying causes of our problems. In addition, the punitive--rather than rehabilitative--
approach to holding violent criminals accountable only increases the statistical probability that, once released, such criminals will again perpetrate acts of violence.
What we need to do is to examine the prison population we have and undertake a concerted, national discourse on how to reduce our prison population. Being that the vast majority of prisoners are locked up in state and local prisons,
we need a populist movement in each state to release as many non-violent prisoners as possible--and to prepare them for their freedom at the same time. There is no issue where the bully pulpit of the White House is more necessary.
Source: 2024 Presidential campaign website Marianne2024.com
, Jun 6, 2023
Eliminate private prisons
Marianne Williamson on Private Prisons: Eliminate them.NINE CANDIDATES HAVE SIMILAR VIEWS: Cory Booker; Pete Buttigieg; Julian Castro; John Delaney; Tulsi Gabbard; Kamala Harris; Bernard Sanders; Elizabeth Warren; Andrew Yang.
Source: Politico "2020Dems on the Issues"
, Jul 17, 2019
Deep, deep racial injustice means we should do reparations
John HICKENLOOPER [former Denver mayor, regarding a shooting by a South Bend white police officer of a black man]: We had a shooting when I first became mayor, 10 years before Ferguson [and we responded with better police accountability]--5 years after
Ferguson, why doesn't every have this level of police accountability?South Bend Mayor Pete BUTTIGIEG: Look, we have taken so many steps toward police accountability that [I've been] denounced for too much accountability. We're obviously not there yet.
WILLIAMSON: All of these issues are extremely important, but they are specifics; they are symptoms. And the underlying cause has to do with deep, deep, deep realms of racial injustice, both in our criminal justice system and in our economic system.
And the Democratic Party should be on the side of reparations for slavery for this very reason. I do not believe that the average American is a racist, but the average American is woefully undereducated about the history of race in the US.
Source: June Democratic Primary debate (second night in Miami)
, Jun 27, 2019
I oppose the death penalty
Q: Do you support or oppose the death penalty?
A: "I oppose the death penalty."
Source: 2019 "Meet the Candidates" (NY Times.com)
, Jun 18, 2019
New Department for domestic violence prevention efforts
As president, I would support the establishment of a US Department of Domestic Peace-Building in order to coordinate domestic violence prevention efforts in conjunction with the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies. Throughout America there
are extraordinary and extraordinarily successful peace-building efforts, whose efficacy would be exponentially increased through a higher level of coordination and government support. While some would argue that such programs would "cost too much,"
the reality is that they decrease the losses caused by violence in the US economy. Diversion and mentoring programs produced $3.36 of benefits for every dollar spent, aggression replacement training produced
$10 of benefits for every dollar spent, and multi-systemic therapy produced $13 of benefits for every dollar spent--in terms of reduced violence, crime and the cost to taxpayers.
Source: 2020 presidential campaign website Marianne2020.com
, Apr 8, 2019
Tougher sentencing laws led to mass incarceration
Mass incarceration now constitutes the single largest urban industry in America, as tougher sentencing laws instituted in the 1990s have led to an explosion of our prison population. Unfortunately, while African Americans make up 12 to 13 percent of the
U. S. population, they make up 35 percent of jail inmates and are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. Add to that the clear instances of police brutality against blacks that have occurred over the last few years in cities such as
Ferguson, MO, and Baltimore, MD, coupled with the with the extraordinary failure of our criminal justice system to convict those whom we saw in video after video, with our own eyes,
proactively assault unarmed blacks, and I don't know how any white American can say, "I don't understand what they're complaining about."
Source: Healing the Soul of America, by Marianne Williamson, p. 98
, Jul 24, 2018
Page last updated: Aug 06, 2024; copyright 1999-2022 Jesse Gordon and OnTheIssues.org