Issue Position: Criminal Justice Reforms

Issue Position

Since taking office, I have found that one of the biggest impediments to finding a job is a criminal record. Upon examining our nation's criminal justice system, I found that the system is in desperate need of reform.

I have called for comprehensive reform measures to fix America's broken criminal justice system, ease the burden on taxpayers, and break the cycle of incarceration for non-violent ex-offenders.

In his 1967 address to Stanford University, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of two Americas. He described them as, "two starkly different American experiences that exist side by side." In one America, people experienced "the opportunity of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all its dimensions." In the other America, people experienced a "daily ugliness" that dashes hope and leaves only "the fatigue of despair."

Although I was born into the America that experiences and believes in opportunity, my trips to Ferguson, Detroit, Atlanta, and Chicago have revealed that there is an undercurrent of unease brought forth by our unjust criminal justice system.

I have worked across the aisle to reform the system with various pieces of legislation including:

The REDEEM Act: Creates a judicial process for adults to seal non-violent criminal records on the federal level. It also creates an automatic expungement of records for non-violent juveniles under the age of 15. It mandates the FBI to update their criminal background check system to ensure that employers receive accurate information. States are incentivized to have substantially similar legislation on the state level or risk losing appropriations for law enforcement agencies.

Justice Safety Valve Act: Judges can depart from mandatory minimum sentencing laws if they find that it is in the best interests of justice to do so. This would increase judicial discretion and allow judges to make individualized determinations about the proper punishment for defendants.

Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act: If passed, this would restore the voting rights of every non-violent felon in the country. Non-violent felons would be able to vote in federal elections only and states that do not change their laws to reflect this would not receive federal prison funds.

RESET Act: This bill re-classifies simple possession of controlled substances -- very small amounts -- as a misdemeanor rather than a low-level felony. It also eliminates the crack-cocaine disparity.

FAIR Act: This bill ensures that the federal government would have to prove by clear and convincing evidence that seized property was being used for illegal purposes before it's forfeited. Forfeited assets would be placed in the Treasury's General Fund instead of the DOJ's Asset Forfeiture Fund. This shift would remove the profit incentive police officers currently have to seize and forfeit property. The bill would also protect the property rights of citizens by eliminating the ability of state law enforcement to circumvent state asset forfeiture laws and use more lenient federal standards instead.

As President, I will continue to work across the aisle to reform our criminal justice system in the hopes of tearing down the wall between the two Americas, and giving everyone a shot at the American Dream.

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