More headlines: Kamala Harris on Crime
(Following are older quotations. Click here for main quotations.)
In CA, created many first-time criminal justice reforms
I was the first statewide officer to institute a requirement that my agents would wear body cameras and keep them on full-time. We were the first to initiate a requirement that there would be training for law enforcement on implicit bias because yes,
Joe Biden and I recognize that implicit bias does exist. We did the work of instituting reforms that were about investing in re-entry. This is the work that we have done and the work we will do going forward.
Source: 2020 Vice-Presidential Debate in Utah
Oct 7, 2020
Tough prosecutor; but for reform as candidate
She is a former prosecutor, and her handling of cases involving police shootings of civilians while she was California's attorney general drew criticism from activists on the left, who argued that she was not aggressive enough in stepping in to overhaul
rogue police departments and that she sided too frequently with police unions. Ms. Harris has said she was trying to effect change from "inside" government. "When we want to reform systems, it shouldn't and it can't only be from the outside on bended
knee or trying to break down the door." As a Democratic presidential candidate, Ms. Harris released plans outlining her vision for criminal justice reform and how to "stand up for Black America." As part of the plans, Ms. Harris called for ending mass
incarceration, cash bail and the death penalty; creating a national police systems review board; making attending historically Black colleges and universities debt-free for students; and many other measures.
Source: New York Times on 2020 Veepstakes
Jul 21, 2020
Moratorium on death penalty; but defended it as AG
Harris has called for a national moratorium on the death penalty.
She defended the death penalty as attorney general, despite being personally against it.
Source: Axios.com "What you need to know about 2020"
May 7, 2019
No on capital punishment, but justice for murderers
If she were president, no one would be executed in the U.S. for any crime--not even treason.
She adds, though, "I absolutely and strongly believe there should be serious and swift consequence when one human being kills another human being. ... I am unequivocal in that belief. So let's be very clear about that. There should be justice."
Source: NPR Morning Edition: Election 2020 Special Series
Mar 14, 2019
Treat crime economically: most safety for the investment
results of making particular adjustments to complex systems. And we can apply the logic and principles of economics to fight against crime. It is crucial to ask how we can achieve the most safety for the lowest cost. We have spent billions of dollars on
ineffective solutions that have not delivered the safety we must demand.And today, more urgently than ever, I think all Americans want to spend our limited resources on those things that will deliver the most safety for the investment.
Source: Smart on Crime, by Kamala Harris, "Preface"
Oct 7, 2009
Crime pyramid: nonviolent offender isn't hardened criminal
When I look at the criminal justice system today, the result is best represented by a pyramid. At the very top are the very worst crimes. Only a quarter of all offenders admitted to prison are violent offenders. The largest mass of the crime pyramid is
the truly staggering number of nonviolent offenders.The problem is that we have been using only the tools best suited to combatting the offenders at the top of the pyramid, and we have been using them on the entire crime pyramid.
Most nonviolent offenders are learning the wrong lesson, and in many cases, they are becoming better and more hardened criminals during their prison stays.
It's time to rock the crime pyramid.
These lower-in-the-pyramid offenders often have no job
skills, and far more often than not are addicted to drugs. We quite appropriately arrest them when they offend and re-offend, but then we warehouse them in jails, which pushes them deeper into the grip of gangs and the culture of hardened criminals.
Source: Smart on Crime, by Kamala Harris, "Introduction"
Oct 7, 2009
Sister, Maya, authored "Activist's Guide to Police Reform"
Maya Lakshmi Harris West, like her sister, is a lawyer and a voice that refuses to be silenced even in the face of corruption and intimidation. She had the job of a political advisor to Hilary Clinton during the
2016 presidential elections. As an activist, Maya championed the cause for police reform. She was a principal author for the report on the issue entitled: organized for Change: The Activist's Guide for Police Reform.
Source: The Democrats, by Alexander Moore, p.169
Jul 9, 2019
I'm part of changing prosecutors' history of injustice
I wanted to work in the district attorney's office--I had found my calling--America has a deep and dark history of people using the power of the prosecutor as an instrument of injustice. I knew this history well--of innocent men framed, of charges
brought against people of color without sufficient evidence, of prosecutors hiding information that would exonerate defendants. I grew up with these stories--so I understood my community's wariness. But history told another story too.
I knew the history of brave prosecutors who went after the Klu Klux Klan in the South. I also knew the legacy of Robert Kennedy, who, as U.S. attorney general, sent Department of Justice officials to protect the Freedom Riders in 1961.
I knew quite
well that equal justice was an aspiration. I knew that the force of the law was applied unevenly, sometimes by design. But I also knew that what was wrong with the system didn't need to be an immutable fact. And I wanted to be a part of changing that.
Source: The Truths We Hold, by Kamala Harris, p.24-5
Jan 8, 2019
I chose the unpopular thing to NOT seek the death penalty
[Harris said during the debate]: "My entire career I have been personally opposed to the death penalty and that has never changed. And I dare anybody who is in a position to make that decision, to face the people I have faced to say I will not seek the
death penalty. That is my background; that is my work. When I was in the position of having to decide whether or not to seek a death penalty on cases I prosecuted, I made a very difficult decision that was not popular to not seek the death penalty."
[Is that true? FactCheck by Vox.com:]
In 2004, as district attorney of San Francisco, she refused to seek the death penalty against a man convicted of shooting police officer Isaac Espinoza. She faced opposition from fellow Democrats; Sen. Dianne
Feinstein called for the death penalty at the officer's funeral. But Harris didn't budge--an act of principle that cost her key political allies (as she received almost no support from police groups during her first run for attorney general in 2010).
Source: Vox.com FactCheck on July 2019 Democratic Primary debate
Jul 31, 2019
2010: Ran for A.G. as anti-death-penalty D.A.
[When running for A.G. in 2000], plenty of fellow Democrats had considered me a long shot. One longtime political strategist announced that there was no way I could win, because I was "a woman running for attorney general, a woman who is a minority, a
woman who is a minority, who is anti-death penalty who is DA of wacky San Francisco." Old stereotypes die hard. I was convinced that my perspective and experience made me the strongest candidate in the race, but I didn't know if the voters would agree.
Source: The Truths We Hold, by Kamala Harris, p. 83
Jan 8, 2019
Defied pressure for death penalty for cop killer
The first test of Harris's principles came in 2004, after she was elected as San Francisco's district attorney. Harris defied a united chorus of voices--from the city's police chief and police rank and file, to Democratic senator
Dianne Feinstein--calling for the death penalty for a twenty-one-year-old who killed an undercover police officer. During the officer's funeral, 2000 officers gave Feinstein a standing ovation after she criticized Harris, who was also at the funeral.
Source: Jacobin Magazine on 2018 California Senate race
Aug 10, 2017
Copyright 1999-2023 by Jesse Gordon and OnTheIssues.org; page last updated: Nov 03, 2024