“Kamala Harris has spent her career fighting for reforms in the criminal justice system and pushing the envelope to keep everyone safer by bringing fairness and accountability,” Lily Adams, a spokesperson for Harris at the time, previously told me. Harris’s supporters argue that these criticisms sell her short, missing the times she was ahead of the country and her party on criminal justice issues - such as when she implemented prison diversion programs as district attorney and a “first-of-its-kind” racial bias training for police officers. Harris did not barter or trade to get the support of more conservative law-and-order types she gave it all away,” wrote Lara Bazelon, a law professor and former director for the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent in Los Angeles, in a New York Times op-ed. Kamala Harris (D-CA) rides the Senate subway before a news conference about legislation she is introducing to reunify immigrant families at the US Capitol on July 17, 2018, in Washington, DC. But as she has become a prominent political figure - she’s had several viral moments questioning President Donald Trump’s nominees in the Senate - those more familiar with her criminal justice record, particularly on the left, have voiced their skepticism. Harris argues that she’s fought to reverse incarceration, scale back the war on drugs, and address racial disparities in the criminal justice system. But her record in California, where she was a prosecutor, district attorney, and state attorney general before representing the state in the US Senate, has come under harsh scrutiny and debate since she launched her own presidential campaign in 2019.
Harris has argued that her views align with the new progressive movement. But Harris has also faced questions over her record on criminal justice issues - a record that’s led some critics to describe her not as a progressive reformer but as a relic of a “tough on crime” era going back to the 1990s and 2000s.Ī generation after Democrats embraced “tough on crime” policies that swelled prison populations, progressive activists are pushing to make the criminal justice system less punitive and racist - and polls show a majority of Democrats support such efforts.
Kamala Harris (D-CA) has earned the reputation of a rising star in the Democratic Party, most recently becoming former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate in the presidential election.
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