<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p><em>Newsweek</em> has <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-biden-both-have-complicated-records-criminal-justice-reform-1528052">this effective new piece</a> headlined "Trump and Biden Both Have Complicated Records on Criminal Justice Reform," and here are excerpts:</p> <blockquote> <p>Despite billing themselves as the best bet voters have for criminal justice reform, neither former Vice President Joe Biden nor President Donald Trump has a strong record to fall back on.</p> <p>The Republican National Convention kicked off on Monday with Senator Tim Scott and Georgia state Representative Vernon Jones, a Democrat, lauding Trump for the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill the president signed in 2018. Trump — who pardoned on Tuesday night Jon Ponder, a former bank robber who started a nonprofit in 2010 to help formerly incarcerated individuals — and other speakers contrasted that accomplishment with Biden's involvement in tough-on-crime legislation....</p> <p>A bipartisan bill, the First Step Act resulted in the release of 3,100 people from prison in July 2019 as part of the act's "good time credit fix," and an additional 3,000 people were resentenced to shorter prison terms, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. It's an aspect of the Trump administration's legacy that some experts say should be praised, but it's all Trump has to point to in terms of criminal justice reform legislation.</p> <p>"Yes, he signed and supported an important piece of legislation, but that seems to be where the story ends," Kara Gotsch, director of strategic initiatives at the Sentencing Project, told Newsweek. "I think a lot of people in my community, after the commutation of Alice Johnson, hoped that it would lead to significant numbers of commutations."</p> <p>Trump granted Johnson clemency in June 2018 after she served 21 years in prison for a first-time nonviolent drug offense. Two years later, he commuted the sentences of Crystal Munoz, Tynice Hall and Judith Negron, three women who served prison time with Johnson, and on Thursday, she's expected to speak at the GOP convention.</p> <p>For all the lambasting of Biden's criminal justice record and praise of the First Step Act, Trump's also taken a hard stance in favor of law enforcement, labeled protesters "anarchists" and characterized himself as a "law and order" president. Trump also pushed for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, a group of young men wrongly convicted of a 1989 murder. He supported the same punishment for drug dealers just three months after signing the First Step Act, making it unclear where he truly stands on criminal justice reform....</p> <p>Trump's sending "mixed signals" to different audiences with regard to criminal justice reform, according to Rachel Barkow, author of Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration. While Biden isn't her "dream candidate," he's the "more promising" option, in her opinion, because both his and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris' recent actions indicate they'll be supportive of such reform. Harris' "trajectory is going in the right direction, and Biden at least is claiming that he is going to support more criminal justice reform efforts," Barkow said.</p> <p>In the 1980s and 1990s, Biden sponsored and supported laws that created mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug-related crimes and increased funding for states to build prisons. Two laws, the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act and the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, have gotten the bulk of the attention for the disproportionate impacts on the African American community....</p> <p>Biden has called his role in passing tough-on-crime legislation a "big mistake," and in June he said concerns about the 1994 crime bill were "legitimate" during a virtual NAACP forum. But he said people should base their opinion on his current actions and comments. Biden's plan if elected includes increased rehabilitation for formerly incarcerated people, creating a $20 billion grant program for states that eliminate mandatory minimums for nonviolent crimes, decriminalizing the use of marijuana and eliminating sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine....</p> <p>Barkow said she hopes if Biden wins, he appoints a new crop of U.S. attorneys and that people who are appointed to sentencing commissions and federal judgeships are from the public defense and civil liberties sector, because bringing that side of the system into the fold is likely to result in better criminal justice reform.... Although she is confident Biden would be more in favor of criminal justice reform than Trump, Barkow said if Biden doesn't take responsibility for the mistakes he's made in the past and commit to using his clemency powers, it will show there were "no lessons learned."</p> </blockquote>There is so much more to the criminal justice records of both these men, this story only really scratches the surface (though does so well). I am hopeful that these topics get significant attention in the upcoming debates, in part to get both candidates on the record promising to do more in this arena.</div> Via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247011 http://www.rssmix.com/
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