Advocates want criminal justice reform in Dem debate

Advocates are hoping that the first Democratic presidential debate Tuesday night will feature a spirited discussion about how to reform the criminal justice system.

With two bills before Congress, Holly Harris, the executive director of the U.S. Justice Action Network — the largest bipartisan advocacy organization for criminal justice reform — said it’s time to hear specifics from the candidates.

“The candidates have said the criminal justice system ‘needs reform,’ but we need to hear what that means,” she said.

{mosads}Harris said she’d specifically like to hear the candidates’ sentencing reform proposals and how they plan to handle re-entry at the federal level.

“We have to give these individuals who re-enter society the tools to get a good job and so I’d like to hear specifically what we are going to do for these individuals,” she said. “How are we going to make re-entry successful? Sentencing reform is just one component of justice reform. How are we going to fix the backside of this problem?”

If candidates aren’t going to talk about their policies, Harris said they should at the very least say whether they support the bills before Congress.

Earlier this month, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced legislation to reduce mandatory minimum sentences, including those for nonviolent drug offenders, and increase mandatory minimum sentences in other areas such as interstate domestic violence.

And last week, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) introduced a House bill that doesn’t go as far as the Senate bill but similarly reforms sentencing laws.

“This is no longer a point of argument that our criminal justice system is broken in this country,” Harris said. “The question is specifically how are these candidates going to fix it? It starts with asking if they are for these proposals.”