Sanders Unveils Plan to End Cash Bail, Ban Private Prisons, and 'Fundamentally Transform' US Criminal Justice System

Authored by commondreams.org and submitted by Hoxha_Posadist
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Decrying America's status as the "world's leading jailer," Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday released a comprehensive plan to confront the crisis of mass incarceration, end the criminalization of poverty, and dramatically overhaul the U.S. criminal justice system.

"We have a criminal justice system that is racist and broken, and working together we're going to fundamentally transform it," said Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

The platform, which Sanders unveiled at an event in Columbia, South Carolina on Sunday, condemns America's "overly-punitive approach to public safety" and urges investments "to rebuild the communities that mass incarceration continues to decimate."

"We have over two million people in jail and prison, more than any other nation on earth, and they are disproportionately African-American, Latino, and Native American," Sanders wrote in an email to supporters on Sunday. "We spend $80 billion a year keeping people behind bars, money which could be used for education, job creation, and affordable housing."

"We spent, and I want everybody to hear this, $80 billion a year in tax dollars at the local, state, and federal level to lock up fellow Americans... It might be a better idea to take some of that $80 billion and start investing in our young people." @BernieSanders pic.twitter.com/KyEv2q9hsf — People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) August 18, 2019

To remedy this dysfunctional and devastating system, Sanders' platform—detailed on his website—calls for:

A ban on private prisons as part of a broader effort to "end profiteering in our criminal justice system";

An end to cash bail, which traps poor Americans in a cycle of debt;

Halting excessive sentencing "with the goal of cutting the incarcerated population in half";

Transformation of policing by ensuring oversight and accountability for law enforcement, banning use of facial recognition software by law enforcement, and ending "programs that provide military equipment to local police";

Legalization of marijuana and erasure of past marijuana convictions; and

An end to the criminalization of addiction by funding adequate treatment for those addicted to opioids.

"If we stand together, we can eliminate private prisons and detention centers. No more profiteering from locking people up," Sanders said during his speech in South Carolina.

"If we stand together we can end the disastrous 'war on drugs,'" the senator added. "If we stand together we can end cash bail. No more keeping people in jail because they're too poor. If we stand together we can enact real police department reform and prosecute police brutality. If we stand together, there is nothing, nothing, nothing that we cannot accomplish."

ComradeTonyGazelle on August 18th, 2019 at 15:55 UTC »

This shouldn't be a controversial platform

puppuli on August 18th, 2019 at 15:49 UTC »

Entire plan is too long for a single comment. So broke it down to three comments. Also, watch the unveiling of the plan by Bernie which will be live streamed on YouTube. It starts at 2 PM ET.

End Profiteering in Our Criminal Justice System

Ban for-profit prisons. Make prison phone calls and other communications such as video chats free of charge. Audit the practices of commissaries and use regulatory authority to end price gouging and exorbitant fees. Incentivize states and localities to end police departments’ reliance on fines and fees for revenue. Remove the profit motive from our re-entry system and diversion, community supervision, or treatment programs, and ensure people leaving incarceration or participating in diversion, community supervision, or treatment programs can do so free of charge.

End Cash Bail

End the use of secured bonds in federal criminal proceedings. Provide grants to states to reduce their pretrial detention populations, which are particularly high at the county level, and require states to report on outcomes as a condition of renewing their funding. Withhold funding from states that continue the use of cash bail systems. Ensure that alternatives to cash bail are not leading to disparities in the system.

Transform the Way We Police Communities

Ensure Law Enforcement Accountability and Robust Oversight:

Rescind former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ guidance on consent decrees. Revitalize the use of Department of Justice investigations, consent decrees, and federal lawsuits to address systemic constitutional violations by police departments. Ensure accountability, strict guidelines and independent oversight for all federal funds used by police departments. End federal programs that provide military equipment to local police forces. Create a federally managed database of police use of deadly force. Provide grants for states and cities to establish civilian oversight agencies with enforceable accountability mechanisms. Establish federal standards for the use of body cameras, including establishing third-party agencies to oversee the storage and release of police videos. Mandate criminal liability for civil rights violations resulting from police misconduct. Limit the use of “qualified immunity” to address the lack of criminal liability for civil rights violations resulting from police misconduct. Conduct a U.S. Attorney General’s investigation whenever someone is killed in police custody. Establish a federal no-call policy, including a registry of disreputable federal law enforcement officers, so testimony from untrustworthy sources does not lead to criminal convictions. Provide financial support to pilot local and state level no-call lists. Ban the use of facial recognition software for policing.

Provide More Support to Police Officers and Create A Robust Non-Law Enforcement Alternative Response System:

Establish national standards for use of force by police that emphasize de-escalation. Require and fund police officer training on implicit bias (to include biases based on race, gender, sexual orientation and identity, religion, ethnicity and class), cultural competency, de-escalation, crisis intervention, adolescent development, and how to interact with people with mental and physical disabilities. We will ensure that training is conducted in a meaningful way with strict independent oversight and enforceable guidelines. Ban the practice of any law enforcement agency benefiting from civil asset forfeiture. Limit or eliminate federal criminal justice funding for any state or locality that does not comply. Provide funding to states and municipalities to create civilian corps of unarmed first responders, such as social workers, EMTs, and trained mental health professionals, who can handle order maintenance violations, mental health emergencies, and low-level conflicts outside the criminal justice system, freeing police officers to concentrate on the most serious crimes. Incentivize access to counseling and mental health services for officers. Diversify police forces and academies and incentivize officers to live and work in the communities they serve.

Ensuring All Americans Due Process

Right to Counsel:

Triple congressional 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.

Ensure Accountability and Fairness in Prosecution:

Rescind former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ orders on prosecutorial discretion and low-level offenses. Appoint an Attorney General committed to public safety and creating a more just and humane criminal justice system. Limit “absolute immunity” for prosecutors, which is used to shield wrongdoers from liability. End the practice of jailing material witnesses. Place a moratorium on the use of the algorithmic risk assessment tools in the criminal justice system until an audit is completed. We must ensure these tools do not have any implicit biases that lead to unjust or excessive sentences.

Ending Mass Incarceration and Excessive Sentencing

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. Stop the criminalization of homelessness and spend more than $25 billion over five years to end homelessness. This includes doubling McKinney-Vento homelessness assistance grants to build permanent supportive housing, and $500 million to provide outreach to homeless people to help connect them to available services. In the first year of this plan, 25,000 Housing Trust Fund units will be prioritized for housing the homeless.

End the War on Drugs and Stop Criminalizing Addiction

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. Provide people struggling with addiction with the health care they need by guaranteeing health care — including inpatient and outpatient substance abuse and mental health services with no copayments or deductibles — to all people as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program. Decriminalize possession of buprenorphine, which helps to treat opioid addiction, and ensure that first responders carry naloxone to prevent overdoses. Legalize safe injection sites and needle exchanges around the country, and support pilot programs for supervised injection sites, which have shown to substantially reduce drug overdose deaths. Raise the threshold for when drug charges are federalized, as federal charges carry longer sentences. Work with states to fund and pursue innovative overdose prevention initiatives. Institute a full review of the current sentencing guidelines and end the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine.

ShoehornBundy on August 18th, 2019 at 14:49 UTC »

When your country represents roughly 4% of the global population yet imprisons more than 20% of the global prison population, there is undeniably a problem that needs correcting.