Over the weekend, presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders released a comprehensive plan to reform the criminal justice system, and for once, the Sanders campaign is spot-on. To start, the Vermont senator has accurately identified the problem with our criminal justice system: over-incarceration, and an approach oriented toward punishment, not rehabilitation.
The plan states that “Today, the United States imprisons people at a higher rate than any other nation, in no small part due to extremely harsh sentencing policies.” Sanders says that, “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.”
True and true.
According to the Sentencing Project, incarceration rates have increased 500% in the last four decades. We now lock up more than 2.2 million people. The U.S. boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world. This might sound like we’re just “tough on crime,” but it actually isn’t a good thing: Over-incarceration has resulted in massive government expenditures and the loss of liberty of millions who haven’t hurt anyone — plus, many experts don’t think our incarceration obsession has even made us much safer.
That’s why Sanders wants to cut the prison population in half. And, at least as far as the federal prison population — just 12% of the total — is concerned, his proposal could do the trick, without necessarily setting back public safety.
First, it focuses on serious sentencing reforms to try to address the problem of over-incarceration at its core. It does this by eliminating federal mandatory minimums, shortsighted laws that tie judges’ hands and restrict their ability to take individual circumstances into account, forcing high mandatory sentences for certain offenses. These inflexible laws often lead to overly-punitive sentences.
And Sanders’ plan would also include a rescission of a Justice Department memo instructing prosecutors to pursue the toughest sentences possible, and it encourages states to reduce their prison population systems with federal grants. Plus, it adds funding for critically overwhelmed public defender’s offices, which currently struggle to keep up and serve all their clients well.
Another change Sanders proposes is the elimination of cash bail, which sometimes allows the rich to go free while awaiting criminal trial whereas poorer people accused of the same crime rot behind bars. Eliminating this practice would help reduce the shockingly-high number of people incarcerated awaiting trial.
So too would it crack down on civil asset forfeiture, a bizarre and unjust practice where police seize the assets of those merely suspected of crimes, sometimes not even formally charged. Plus, it targets the judicial doctrine of “qualified immunity,” whereby state employees such as police officers are shielded from civil lawsuits under a vague standard, even when they may have violated someone’s rights. It also seeks to improve police oversight.
Naturally, though, like any Sanders plan, this criminal justice reform proposal contains a fair mix of Bernie-esque crazy rhetoric and unrealistic ideas alike.
For one, the candidate rages against the boogeyman of “privatization” and “private prisons,” and even more controversial, his proposal would restore voting rights to all incarcerated people, effectively allowing even child rapists and murders to vote from behind bars. Hopefully, the plan’s more radical provisions would be stripped before it ever went anywhere.
I spoke with Libertas Institute policy analyst Molly Davis. She was optimistic about Sanders’ plan, but cautious, saying: “Bernie’s plan is seemingly comprehensive, touching on everything from abolishing the death penalty to reforming qualified immunity, yet it’s lacking in essential details of how he will accomplish each of these reforms. Incentivizing states to change their methods sounds nice, but the devil is in the details.”
Davis added, “While prison reduction is a great goal, it heavily relies on cooperation from state legislatures across the country. Unfortunately, this isn’t a change that can be made from behind a desk in Washington.”
Reason’s C.J. Ciaramella called the plan “long on ideas” and “short on details,” but ultimately concluded that it is “by far the most sweeping and ambitious criminal justice plan released by a Democratic candidate this cycle.” Sanders’ proposal is bullish and ambitious indeed, and in this case, that’s actually a good thing.
