Our criminal justice system locks up the poor and poorly connected, while corporate executives and financiers are able to steal from ordinary people and walk free. Little else in America will be gotten right so long as this remains wrong.

I support:

• The Movement for Black Lives, and ensuring that people of color do not live in fear of being murdered by police. At the federal level, this includes supporting the PEACE Act to guarantee that lethal force is a last resort for federal law enforcement officers and to withhold federal funding from state and local governments that fail to enact a similar standard. It includes ending the transfer of military-grade weaponry from the Department of Defense to local police departments. And ensuring real accountability and consequences for police officers who use excessive force.
• Reforming federal sentencing. Nearly half of federal prisoners are serving time for nonviolent drug offenses, leading to significant overcrowding of our federal prison system and wasting federal dollars that could be more productively spent. We need to build off of the bipartisan First Step Act passed in 2018.
• Decriminalizing cannibis and removing it from the Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of controlled substances.
• Providing greater funding for prevention and early intervention with at-risk youth. Our youth are facing a crisis of mental health and trauma; more mental health and counseling services in schools are needed. Sending our children into the juvenile justice system should be the last resort. (See “strengthening public education”)
• Enacting policies that will make it easier for those coming out of prison to land on their feet and survive economically, including by eliminating barriers to accessing affordable housing. (For more, see “fighting for working families” )
• Restoring college-level educational programs in state and federal prisons, which have been shown to improve the lives of those re-entering society and reduce the likelihood of reincarceration. I will support the REAL Act (HR 2168) to repeal the ban on the use of Pell Grants, known as “Second Chance Pell Grants,” to finance such programs.
• Passing the Corporate Executive Accountability Act and making it easier to prosecute corporate executives for white collar crime