Hillary Clinton and Criminal Justice Reform: It's complicated

[cali]

For a long time, through the nineties and as recently as 2008, HRC took a tough on crime stance. She may well have changed, but there's no real trajectory of that to follow.

A lot of people who have been supporting criminal justice reform for much longer than Hillary Clinton are feeling very conflicted about her speech at Columbia University yesterday embracing the cause. And some are simply angry.

After all, as recently as 2008 Clinton was attacking Barack Obama for his opposition to mandatory minimum sentences, using it as an example that he was too liberal to win the Democratic nomination. And she wasn't exactly a bystander during the "tough on crime" era of the 1980s and '90s that created mass incarceration by putting many more offenders in prison for much longer. Bill Clinton championed a 1994 law that, among other things, has increased untold numbers of prison sentences (by encouraging states to drastically reduce or eliminate parole and early release). And his First Lady was right alongside him. "We need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders," she said in 1994. "We need more prisons to keep violent offenders for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets."

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Many of the reactions from criminal justice advocates and pro-reform journalists to Clinton's speech (as collected in Storify from David Menschel) simply dismiss her sincerity. Some of these are diplomatically phrased and some less so, like this tweet from longtime criminal justice journalist Liliana Segura, now writing for the Intercept:

Whenever a politician suddenly flip-flops on an issue, especially after decades spent on the other side, it makes sense to wonder whether the conversion is genuine. But even if Clinton doesn't believe a word she said at Columbia, the fact that she gave the speech is incredibly significant.

For one thing, it's a symbol of how quickly the politics of criminal justice within the Democratic Party have changed. In 2008, Clinton's campaign thought Obama's support for mandatory-minimum reform would hurt him in a Democratic primary. In 2015, Clinton's campaign feels that criminal justice reform (including reform to mandatory minimums) has become such a critical issue to much of the Democratic base that it should be the subject of the very first policy speech Clinton has given since launching her campaign in mid-April. That's a recognition of the power criminal justice reformers have already accrued. In particular, criminal justice has become one of the most important issues (perhaps second only to voting rights) for African-American interest groups, and over the last year the #BlackLivesMatter movement has made it a key issue for progressives, as well.

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http://www.vox.com/2015/4/30/8522259/hillary-record-criminal-justice

[KMOD]

1. If anyone doubts her sincerity on this, they should look up the killing

of Amadou Diallo and her remarks on it.

She took on the NYPD and Guiliani for racial problems in the police force. She called his death murder and took a lot of heat for it.

This was back in 2000.

She is not new to this.

[Cali_Democrat]

2. Correct

Instead of tearing down Hillary Clinton, I wish some folks would build up their own candidate for the Democratic nomination.

Going negative in a Dem primary is not an effective strategy for getting a candidate the nomination.

Dem voters are turned off by this kind of stuff.

[cali]

6. and conflicting with that, her comments in the 2008 campaign.

[SamKnause]

3. No it isn't.

End the war against cannabis.

Release all non violent offenders.

Outlaw private prisons.

Make police buy insurance to cover fines or take them

from union dues.

Make the sentence for convicted police double that of

a civilian. (same goes for judges, district attorneys, public defenders, attorney general, FBI, DEA, TSA, NSA, CIA,

military brass)

Do DNA testing on all prisoners and test against trail evidence. (this should go back decades

if there is evidence to test against)

Just a short list to get the ball rolling so to speak.

[hifiguy]

5. An excellent list, Sam.

All I would add is getting rid of police unions. They operate on the same business model as the Mafia, omerta and all.

[SamKnause]

8. I would let them keep their unions

as long as not a single cent of tax payers dollars are spent covering

the judgments against them.

They have 2 choices;

1. buy insurance

2. cover judgments from union dues

I think both would be an incentive to clean up their act.

[cali]

7. what I meant by complicated, is her relationship with the issue

[SamKnause]

9. Thanks for the clarification.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Apparantly, she's "evolving" again. At least temporarily.

Aka: Triangulating