Our criminal justice system isn’t just broken, it is systematically racist. The US leads the world in incarceration rates. Black people are stopped, detained, arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated at a significantly higher rate than white people. Millions of people are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes. Reagan era propaganda did irrefutable damage to communities of color. The system needs a serious overhaul. 

End the War on Drugs

The only thing the war on drugs has accomplished is mass incarceration. It has never stopped the flow of drugs in this country. No one should be in prison for non-violent drug offenses. Addiction is a disease, people need care and treatment, not jail or prison. Marijuana needs to be legalized federally, people currently incarcerated for marijuana must be released and marijuana convictions need to be expunged. 

Ban For-Profit Prisons

The prison industrial complex is one of the biggest of fronts to human dignity that exists today. Creating a profit motive to keep people incarcerated will only accomplish one thing, keeping people incarcerated. What is often overlooked is the human aspect to this, the people in jail are mothers, fathers, siblings, sons, daughters. They are loved and missed by their family and friends. They are missing out on their lives & their children’s lives. And the loved ones on the outside foot the bill, for commissary & phone calls, often while struggling to stay afloat themselves. For profit prisons are one of the worst results of capitalism and I vow to sponsor legislation to end them.