AP Exclusive: Kamala Harris' call for reform collides with her past

[left-of-center2012]

San Francisco Chronicle http://www.chroniclet.com/national-news/2019/04/01/AP-Exclusive-Kamala-Harris-39-call-for-reform-collides-with-her-past.html

Within months of Kamala Harris’s swearing-in, she sponsored a bill urging states to eliminate cash bail, denouncing the system as a scourge on the poor and communities of color.

That position would become a key part of her criminal justice reform platform. But her choice surprised some bail reform advocates back in California. In her seven years as a district attorney, and then six as attorney general, Harris was absent on the issue, they say. In fact, less than a year earlier, her office defended the cash bail system in a pair of federal court cases, shifting course only weeks before she entered the Senate.

“For her entire career she used some of the highest money bail amounts to keep people in jail cells and saddle poor families with financial debt,” said Alec Karakatsanis, an attorney who has brought several legal challenges to California's bail system, “and as soon as she had no influence on that issue practically, she announces she has a different view on it.” The move perplexed bail reform advocates who say she could have used her position of power to do more as the top law enforcement official in the state, overseeing thousands of prosecutors who each day requested cash bail for those they charged with crimes.

“I'm glad she's come to the right position now, but it's too late for tens of thousands of Californians, real human beings who have been detained in jail every day in California throughout the whole state, that the attorney general could have stopped,” said Phil Telfeyan, one of the plaintiff's attorneys in the bail cases.

[USALiberal]

1. Bail is a terrible system when you are "presumed innocent"......

$100 for many people is beyond their reach. So they stay in jail and lose their job.

[mobeau69]

2. Kamala, what were you thinking?

[bigtree]

7. where did Buttigieg stand on bail reform when he was mayor?

...has he ever said a thing about it?

California has become the first state to enact state-wide bail reform, and it seems to be sweeping the nation. Here in Indiana, a pilot program has begun in eleven counties...
https://www.indybar.org/index.cfm?pg=CriminalJusticeNews&blAction=showEntry&blogEntry=7240

[bigtree]

3. who else is advocating a 'no money-bail' system?

from the article:

"Harris’ supporters say as a prosecutor she was tasked with upholding the law and, as attorney general, defending the state, not making policy. She had limited ability to effect change within the rigid structure of the courts, they argue.

“Everyone who has experienced the criminal justice system knows it's broken,” said Lateefah Simon, a civil rights activist who worked for Harris in San Francisco. “She would say, ‘we're confined by the rules of the law, and in the areas where we have discretion, we are going to work to try to move justice.’”

“I deeply know her convictions about what could be possible and what we needed to do, but also what the boundaries and limitations were,” she said."


from Politifact:

There’s little question that Harris has notched some achievements that are in tune with what criminal-justice reform advocates have sought. They include:

• The Back On Track program in 2005, which was designed to help nonviolent, first-time drug offenders transition back to their communities and prevent recidivism.

• Her refusal in 2013 to defend California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, saying in a press release, "The Supreme Court has described marriage as a fundamental right 14 times since 1888. The time has come for this right to be afforded to every citizen."

• Her 2015 launch of Open Justice, a criminal-justice open-data initiative that provides information on deaths in police custody, including those that occur during arrests, as well as arrest rates by race and ethnicity. It also provides data on officers who are killed or assaulted on the job.

• Her creation of the first statewide implicit bias training for law enforcement personnel in 2015. It called for a focus on six areas of policing that "emphasize respect, listening, neutrality and trust, while recognizing and addressing implicit biases that can be barriers to these approaches," according to a news release at the time from the attorney general’s office.

• Her implementation of a body camera pilot program for all agents in her attorney general’s department in 2015.

• Her establishment of the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board in 2016.

"As a prosecutor in the early and mid 2000s, a time when so many still held a ‘lock ‘em up’ mentality, Senator Harris pioneered a reentry program that became a state and national model," Ian Sams, Harris’ campaign spokesman, said in a written statement, referring to the Back On Track program. "As Attorney General, she implemented a first-of-its-kind training on implicit bias and procedural justice and made her officers wear body cameras. And in the Senate, she has championed criminal justice reform measures to end mass incarceration, upend cash bail, and confront discrimination. That is her record, and it’s one of consistently making progress and protecting people in pursuit of a fairer system."

[Andy823]

5. This is jut another hit job

Seems like the op has a problem with Harris or her supporters here on DU.

[bigtree]

6. it's a weak version of a collection of articles which basically outline the limitations of an AG

...in making policy.

What people need to be reminded of is the impetus for wanting to be president often includes a desire to be in a real position to effect change. Not much opportunity in a role that is focused on following the law, not making it.

[Andy823]

4. Here we go again

Why don't you just try and promote your candidate instead of all this negative crap about Harris?

[mcar]

8. She raised $12 million last qtr,

which, according to the pundits, is good for Mayor Pete.

Now I see she's being criticized for doing something good.

[WeekiWater]

9. I see no collision.

Solid position she is putting forward.

Those who don't want to support Harris and her call to urge states to eliminate cash bail please check in.