Issue Position: Criminal Justice Reform

Issue Position

The justice system should be restorative and rehabilitative. The recidivism rate alone should tell us that we're getting this wrong. A public safety quarantine model would serve us better than the punitive approach we've been taking for so many generations.

There are evidence-based practices that can be implemented at every level of law enforcement to reduce the need for use of force altogether, while increasing trust between under-served communities and law enforcement officers, bringing down the crime rate, and promoting peace. But it all starts with taking a long and broader view on this issue: what are we even going for here? What is the goal of all the policing, prosecuting, and incarceration that we do? Is it promoting peaceful coexistence among varied members of our society? Is it keeping people safe and secure? If it isn't accomplishing those things, then what is it for?

I subscribe to the public safety quarantine model of law enforcement, with an emphasis on restorative justice for wrongdoing when it is committed. Here's what that means:

Government intervention into ordinary people's private lives and behavior should be strictly limited to that which is necessary to protect other ordinary people from being harmed. When someone is taken into police custody, and certainly when they are incarcerated or otherwise placed under systems of control (probation, parole, house arrest, etc.), they are without a doubt being deprived of personal liberty. Because of this fact, every pain should be taken to ensure that this system is employed only when absolutely necessary for public health and safety. The fact that it has been used for trivial, victimless, and non-violent offenses has produced predictable results: mass incarceration, excessive use of force by law enforcement officers, and above all, an open-ended venue for racial profiling to run rampant and control Black lives and communities with state sanctioned violence and oppression.

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