Equality, equity, justice – these ideas form the American creed.
We have never lived up to it and we haven’t always gotten it right, but we’ve
never stopped trying. This is especially true when it comes to our criminal
justice system.
Today, too many people are incarcerated in the United States – and too many of
them are black and brown. To build safe and healthy communities, we need to
rethink who we’re sending to jail, how we treat those in jail, and how we help
them get the health care, education, jobs, and housing they need to
successfully rejoin society after they serve their time. As president,
Joe Biden will strengthen America’s commitment to justice and reform our
criminal justice system.
The Biden Plan for Strengthening
America’s Commitment to Justice is based on several core principles:
·
We can and must reduce the number of people
incarcerated in this country while also reducing crime. No one should
be incarcerated for drug use alone. Instead, they should be diverted to drug
courts and treatment. Reducing the number of incarcerated individuals will
reduce federal spending on incarceration. These savings should be reinvested in
the communities impacted by mass incarceration.
·
Our criminal justice system cannot be just unless we
root out the racial, gender, and income-based disparities in the system. Black mothers
and fathers should feel confident that their children are safe walking the
streets of America. And, when a police officer pins on that shield and walks
out the door, the officer’s family should know they’ll come home at the end of
the day. Additionally, women and children are uniquely impacted by the criminal
justice system, and the system needs to address their unique needs.
·
Our criminal justice system must be focused on redemption
and rehabilitation. Making sure formerly incarcerated individuals have the
opportunity to be productive members of our society is not only the right thing
to do, it will also grow our economy.
·
No one should be profiteering off of our criminal
justice system.
Biden calls for
the immediate passage of Congressman Bobby Scott’s SAFE Justice Act, an
evidence-based, comprehensive bill to reform our criminal justice system “from front-end sentencing reform to
back-end release policies.” The Biden Plan will also go further.
Biden will take bold action to reduce our prison population, create a more just
society, and make our communities safer, by:
·
Preventing crime and providing opportunities for all.
·
Eliminating racial disparities and ensuring fair sentences.
·
Offering second chances.
·
Reducing violence in our communities and supporting survivors of
violence.
I. PREVENTING CRIME AND PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL
Preventing crime is the best way to make our communities safer and reduce
incarceration.
Evidence tell us that certain life experiences are strongly correlated with an
increased likelihood of future incarceration.
·
The percentage of girls in our juvenile justice system who have
a history of physical or sexual abuse could be as high as 80 or 90%.
·
Roughly 1 out of every 4
children in foster care will interact with the criminal justice system just two
years after exiting foster care.
·
Incarcerated individuals have lower literacy levels
than individuals not involved in the criminal justice system.
·
Too many people with mental health or substance use disorders
end up incarcerated.
We have to
address these underlying factors to provide opportunities for all and prevent
crime and incarceration.
Focusing on addressing these underlying factors is not just the right thing to
do, it is also good for our communities and our economy. It costs the federal
government about $100 per day to hold
someone in federal prison. And that dollar amount doesn’t begin to capture “the true cost of incarceration”
– emotional and financial – on families whose loved
ones are incarcerated. This dollar amount doesn’t capture the ways in which
mass incarceration can tear apart the fabric of a community. And, it doesn’t
capture the economic impact of removing incarcerated individuals from the labor
force.
The Biden Plan will shift our country’s focus from incarceration to
prevention. As president, Biden will:
·
Create a new $20 billion competitive grant program to
spur states to shift from incarceration to prevention. To accelerate
criminal justice reform at the state and local levels, Biden will create a new
grant program inspired by a proposal by the Brennan
Center. States, counties, and cities will receive funding to invest in efforts
proven to reduce crime and incarceration, including efforts to address some of
the factors like illiteracy and child abuse that are correlated with
incarceration. In order to receive this funding, states will have to eliminate
mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes, institute earned credit programs,
and take other steps to reduce incarceration rates without impacting public
safety.
·
Invest in educational opportunity for all. To truly
create opportunity and address one of the key underlying drivers of crime,
President Biden will ensure that no child’s future is determined by their zip
code, parents’ income, race, or disability. He’ll start by making pre-K
available to every three- and four-year-old. He’ll triple funding for Title I,
the federal program funding schools with a high percentage of students from
low-income families. This will eliminate the funding gap between white and
non-white districts, and rich and poor districts. Biden will also make sure
every high school student graduates with either advanced credits or an industry
credential in their pocket. And, he’ll make community college free for all
qualified students. Read Joe Biden’s full Plan for Educators, Students,
and our Future.
·
Get people who should be supported with social
services – instead of in our prisons – connected to the help they need. Too often,
those in need of mental health care or rehabilitation for a substance use
disorder do not get the care that they need. Instead, they end up having
interactions with law enforcement that lead to incarceration. The same is true
for homeless individuals. That’s not fair to those individuals, and it’s not
fair to police officers. To change the nature of these interactions, the Biden Administration
will fund initiatives to partner mental health and substance use disorder
experts, social workers, and disability advocates with police departments.
These service providers will train police officers to better de-escalate
interactions with people in severe emotional distress before they become
violent. They’ll also help police officers learn how to better approach
individuals with certain disabilities, like those with autism or who are deaf,
so misunderstanding does not lead to incarceration. And, these service
providers will respond to calls with police officers so individuals who should
not be in the criminal justice system are diverted to treatment for addiction
or mental health problems, or are provided with the housing or other social
services they may need.
II. ELIMINATING RACIAL DISPARITIES AND ENSURING FAIR SENTENCES
We need to confront racial and income-based disparities in our justice system
and eliminate overly harsh sentencing for non-violent crimes. As president,
Biden will:
·
Expand and use the power of the U.S. Justice
Department to address systemic misconduct in police departments and
prosecutors’ offices. Using authority in legislation
spearheaded by Biden as senator, the Obama-Biden
- Justice Department used
pattern-or-practice investigations and consent decrees to address
circumstances of “systemic police misconduct”
and to “restore trust between police
and communities” in cities such as Ferguson. Yet, the Trump
Administration’s Justice Department has limited the use of
this tool. For example, under the Trump Administration, consent decrees
between the Justice Department and police departments must now be signed
off on by a political appointee from the Department. And, the Justice
Department has set an arbitrary limit on how long such consent decrees can
remain in place regardless of whether an end to the agreement is
warranted. Under the Biden Administration, the Justice Department will
again use its authority to root out unconstitutional or unlawful policing.
The Biden Administration will reverse the limitations put in place under
President Trump, and Biden will appoint Justice Department leadership who
will prioritize the role of using pattern-or-practice investigations to
strengthen our justice system. In addition, Biden will push for
legislation to clarify that this pattern-or-practice investigation
authority can also be used to address systemic misconduct by prosecutors’
offices.
- Establish an independent
Task Force on Prosecutorial Discretion. Law enforcement officials’ decisions
regarding when to arrest, when to charge, and what charges to bring are
critical decision-points in our criminal justice system. The charges, for
example, can dramatically impact not only what sentence someone ends up
with but also whether they are compelled to take a plea bargain. The Biden
Administration will create a new task force, placed outside of the U.S.
Department of Justice, to make recommendations for tackling discrimination
and other problems in our justice system that results from arrest and
charging decisions.
- Invest in public
defenders’ offices to ensure defendants’ access to quality counsel. To create a fairer
criminal justice system, we must ensure that individuals who cannot afford
counsel have quality representation. And, access to counsel should be
available starting at the moment someone appears before a judge. But,
right now, defenders’ resources and support are too decentralized and too
hard to access. And, as Vice President Biden knows from his own experience
leaving a law firm to be a public defender, the wage disparity for
prosecutors and defenders limits the ability of defenders’ offices to
recruit the best and brightest. As president, Biden will expand the
Obama-Biden effort to expand
resources for public defenders’ offices.
- Eliminate mandatory
minimums.
Biden supports an end to mandatory minimums. As president, he will work
for the passage of legislation to repeal mandatory minimums at the federal
level. And, he will give states incentives to repeal their mandatory
minimums.
- End, once and for all,
the federal crack and powder cocaine disparity. The Obama-Biden
Administration successfully narrowed the
unjustified disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences. The
Biden Administration will eliminate this disparity completely, as
then-Senator Biden proposed in 2007.
And, Biden will ensure that this change is applied retroactively.
- Decriminalize the use of
cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions. Biden believes no one
should be in jail because of cannabis use. As president, he will
decriminalize cannabis use and automatically expunge prior convictions.
And, he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes,
leave decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the
states, and reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can
study its positive and negative impacts.
- End all incarceration
for drug use alone and instead divert individuals to drug courts and
treatment.
Biden believes that no one should be imprisoned for the use of illegal
drugs alone. Instead, Biden will require federal courts to divert these
individuals to drug courts so they receive treatment to address their
substance use disorder. He’ll incentivize states to put the same
requirements in place. And, he’ll expand funding for federal, state, and
local drug courts.
- Expand other effective
alternatives to detention. The Biden Administration will also take an
evidence-based approach to increase federal funding for other alternatives-to-detention
courts and related
programs for individuals convicted of non-violent crimes, such as veterans courts and youthful
offender courts.
- Eliminate the death
penalty.
Over 160 individuals
who’ve been sentenced to death in this country since 1973 have later been
exonerated. Because we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right
every time, Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death
penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal
government’s example. These individuals should instead serve life sentences
without probation or parole.
- Use the president’s
clemency power to secure the release of individuals facing unduly long
sentences for certain non-violent and drug crimes. President Obama used his
clemency power more than any of the 10 prior
presidents. Biden will continue this tradition and broadly use his
clemency power for certain non-violent and drug crimes.
- End the criminalization
of poverty.
- >> End cash bail: Cash bail is the
modern-day debtors’ prison. The cash bail system incarcerates people who
are presumed innocent. And, it disproportionately harms low-income
individuals. Biden will lead a national effort to end cash bail and reform
our pretrial system by putting in place, instead, a system that is fair
and does not inject further discrimination or bias into the process.
- >> Stop jailing
people for being too poor to pay fines and fees: Some people end up
unable to escape our justice system because of the very fines and fees
that the system levies. Biden will use the grantmaking power of the
federal government to incentivize the end of policies that incarcerate
people for failing to pay fines and fees. He’ll also target policies to revoke driver’s licenses
for unpaid parking or speeding tickets. And, he’ll help individuals
incarcerated for six months or longer get a true fresh start by
incentivizing states to wipe clean any outstanding traffic fines or fees
that would prevent them from obtaining a license. These license-related
reforms will not apply to licenses revoked for driving while intoxicated,
reckless driving, or other serious driving violations.
- Stop corporations from
profiteering off of incarceration. Biden will end the federal government’s
use of private prisons, building off an Obama-Biden Administration’s policy rescinded by the
Trump Administration. And, he will make clear that the federal government
should not use private facilities for any detention, including detention
of undocumented immigrants. Biden will also make eliminating private
prisons and all other methods of profiteering off of incarceration –
including diversion programs, commercial
bail, and electronic monitoring – a requirement for his new
state and local prevention grant program. Finally, Biden will support the
passage of legislation to crack
down on the practice of private companies charging incarcerated
individuals and their families outrageously high fees to make calls.
- Provide for the unique
needs of incarcerated women. Women inherently have different basic
health care needs than incarcerated men. Biden will condition receipt of
federal criminal justice grants on adequate provision
of primary care and gynecological care for women, including care for
pregnant women. The Biden Administration will also review the efficacy of
programs that allow non-violent offenders who are primary care providers
for their children to serve their sentences through in-home monitoring.
- Ensure humane prison
conditions.
Biden believes no act can justify the inhumane treatment of an individual
in the hands of the government. As president, Biden will call for an
overhaul of inhumane prison practices. He’ll start by ending the practice
of solitary confinement, with very limited exceptions such as protecting
the life of an imprisoned person. And, he’ll require states to fix
environmental health problems in prisons, such as a lack of clean water
and clean air.
·
Encourage states to collect sufficient data so we can
make evidence-based criminal justice policies and eliminate disparities. Data is a
powerful tool to shine light on and spur action to address biases in our
criminal justice system, but we have insufficient data to fully understand
these biases. For example, the vast majority of states
do not collect and report information regarding the ethnicity of individuals
who interact with the criminal justice system. This leads to a lack of
information regarding how Latinx are impacted by the system. The Biden
Administration will encourage states to add information regarding ethnicity to
their criminal justice data collection.
JUVENILE JUSTICE
As president, Biden will prioritize reform of the juvenile justice system to
make sure we give more children a second chance to live up to their potential.
His administration will develop and implement policies in this space based upon
input from children and young adults who interacted with the criminal justice
system as children.
To begin, the Biden Administration will:
·
Invest $1 billion per year in juvenile justice reform. One of the
federal government’s most significant tools for shaping juvenile justice policy
is through grant programs to fund and incentivize state action. The Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act allows states to use funds for purposes such as
providing children with legal representation and helping them seal and expunge
records. In return for taking these funds, states have to fulfill requirements such as
prohibiting children from being incarcerated in facilities where they will
interact with incarcerated adults and addressing the disproportionate
representation of children of color in the juvenile justice system. Congress
recently reauthorized this Act at a funding level of $176 million per year,
but only appropriated $60 million in funds for
fiscal year 2019. As president, Biden will push for full funding of the Act and
then go further, investing a total of $1 billion per year to reform our
juvenile justice system.
·
Incentivize states to stop incarcerating kids. We can cut the
population of incarcerated youth by supporting community-based alternatives to
incarceration like mentorship, counseling, and jobs. This doesn’t mean ankle
bracelets, it means in-person support for our kids. Toward this end, President
Biden will create a new grant program to encourage states to (1) place
non-violent youth in community-based alternatives to prison, and (2) repurpose empty prisons
for the community’s benefit so they cannot be used in the future for detention.
This initiative will begin as a $100 million pilot program in 15-30 states and
counties. To receive this grant funding, localities will be required to bring
young people and impacted communities to the table as they develop plans for
reducing juvenile incarceration.
·
Expand funding for after-school programs, community
centers, and summer jobs to keep young people active, busy, learning, and
having fun. Biden will expand the federal investment in programs that create
safe, nurturing spaces for children to spend time when not in school. Biden
will also create an expanded national summer jobs program for young adults so
they have an opportunity to stay busy, earn an income, and learn new skills.
·
End the use of detention as punishment for status
offenses. Thousands of minors
interact with our justice system every year merely because they commit an
unlawful act that would be legal if they were older. Children end up
incarcerated due to acts such as truancy, alcohol use, and curfew violations.
Biden will add to juvenile justice grant programs a requirement that states
eliminate detention as a punishment for status offenses, and instead make sure
these young people engage in community service, workforce programs, or
mentorship and therapy as needed.
·
End the school to prison pipeline by focusing on
prevention. Biden will focus on investing in prevention in our schools.
He’ll start by doubling the number of mental
health professionals in our schools so behavioral and emotional
challenges can be addressed by appropriately skilled psychologists, counselors,
and social workers, not our criminal justice system. And, he will restore the
Obama-Biden Administration guidance to help schools
address the high number of suspensions and expulsions that affect students of
color at a higher rate than white students.
·
Give children a true second chance by protecting
juvenile records. A fundamental aim of the juvenile justice system is to give
minors who commit offenses a real chance to reach their full potential as
adults. But, they cannot do so if their criminal records are made public or are
otherwise accessible in ways that limit their access to education and/or jobs. In states across the country,
protections for juvenile records are inadequate. Biden will add to existing
juvenile justice grant programs a requirement that states and localities take
action to secure these records, including automatic expungement and sealing
of juvenile records.
IV. OFFERING
SECOND CHANCES
Biden believes in redemption. After incarcerated individuals serve their time,
they should have the opportunity to fully reintegrate into society, earn a good
living, and participate in our democracy as our fellow citizens. It will not
only benefit them, it will benefit all of society. It is also our best strategy
to reduce recidivism.
President Biden will:
·
Set a national goal of ensuring 100% of formerly
incarcerated individuals have housing upon reentry. If
incarcerated individuals do not find housing upon reentry, that lack of housing
can be completely destabilizing and limit their likelihood of successfully
staying out of the criminal justice system and fulfilling their potential.
Biden will work toward a goal of ensuring 100% of formerly incarcerated
individuals - at the federal and state level - have housing upon release. He’ll
start by directing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to only
contract with entities that are open to housing individuals looking for a
second chance. And, he’ll expand funding for transitional housing, which has
been drastically cut under
the Trump Administration.
·
Expand access to mental health and substance use
disorder treatment, as well as educational opportunities and job training for
individuals during and after incarceration. Jails are not the preferred
approach for rehabilitation. That’s why the Biden Administration will expand
the use of drug courts and other diversion programs, as described above. But,
when individuals end up incarcerated and are experiencing mental health
problems or a substance use disorder, they should have access to adequate
treatment. And, all incarcerated individuals should have the opportunity to
pursue education and skills training so they can more easily find employment
after their release. Incarcerated individuals should have the opportunity to
learn to read, earn a GED, or learn a new trade while imprisoned. The Biden
Administration will expand funding for all of these programs and services,
during and after incarceration.
·
Eliminate existing barriers preventing formerly
incarcerated individuals from fully participating in society. There are
numerous provisions existing in federal, state, and local laws that prohibit
formerly incarcerated individuals or individuals on probation from accessing
resources they need to pursue their second chance. Biden will direct his
Cabinet to pursue a comprehensive review to identify these barriers. Then, he
will work to eliminate these barriers through executive action, when
authorized, and through legislation. For example, Biden will eliminate barriers
keeping formerly incarcerated individuals from accessing public assistance such
as SNAP, Pell grants, and housing support. He will streamline the process for
giving individuals on probation or parole for non-violent offenses access to Job Corps. The Biden
Administration will incentivize states to automatically restore voting rights
for individuals convicted of felonies once they have served their sentences.
And, the Biden Administration will expand on the Obama-Biden Administration's “ban the box” policy by
encouraging further adoption of these policies at the state and local level. This
effort will not include any automatic restoration of firearms rights.
IV. REDUCING VIOLENCE AND SUPPORTING SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE
We should pursue evidence-based measures to root out persistent violent crime.
Violent offenders need to be held accountable, and survivors need to have
access to support to deal with the physical, psychological, and financial
consequences of violence.
President Biden will:
·
Counter the rise in hate crimes. The number of
hate crimes in the United States reached a five-year high in 2016, and then
went up another 17% in 2017. Biden will tackle the rise in hate crimes through
moral leadership that makes clear such vitriol has no place in the United
States. And, in the Biden Administration, the Justice Department will
prioritize prosecuting hate crimes.
·
Reinvigorate community-oriented policing. Policing works
best when officers are out of their cruisers and walking the streets, engaging
with and getting to know members of their communities. But in order to do that,
police departments need resources to hire a sufficient number of officers.
Biden spearheaded the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program,
which authorized funding both for the hiring of additional police officers and
for training on how to undertake a community policing approach. However, the
program has never been funded to
fulfill the original vision for community policing. Biden will reinvigorate the
COPS program with a $300 million investment. As a condition of the grant,
hiring of police officers must mirror the racial diversity of the community
they serve. Additionally, as president, Biden will establish a panel to
scrutinize what equipment is used by law enforcement in our communities.
·
Defeat the National Rifle Association – again. In the months
ahead, Biden will also detail his plan to tackle the public health epidemic of
gun violence in America, starting with universal background checks and bans on
assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Biden’s plan to reduce gun
violence will address not only mass shootings but also daily acts of gun
violence that don’t make national headlines. Biden has defeated the National
Rifle Association on the national stage twice before. As president, he will
defeat the NRA again.
·
Reduce violence against women. As the original
author of the Violence Against Women Act, Biden will work to reauthorize and
continue to strengthen the Act, accelerating progress in decreasing violence
against women and girls and providing survivors with support. He’ll put forward
a detailed plan in the months ahead.
·
Support survivors of violence, communities
experiencing violence, and first responders by addressing the impacts of
trauma. Violence causes ripples of trauma throughout our communities,
impacting not just the victims of violence but also their communities and first
responders. And, violence can have a traumatic impact on a generation. Fear of
school shootings is having a noticeable impact on the
mental health of Gen Z. In addition to expanding funding for traditional mental
health treatment and doubling the number of mental health professionals in our
schools, Biden will take three key actions to address the trauma caused by violence.
First, he will fund a demonstration project to help schools pursue
non-traditional approaches to healing trauma, such as art and sports. Second,
he will direct the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to undertake a
comprehensive review of all federal programs to identify how they can be more
trauma-informed and support survivors of violence. Third, Biden will work to
raise the funding cap for the Victims of Crime Act programs
and replace with direct funding any lost revenue for the program due to
proposals in this package. The Victims of Crime Act programs provide financial support to help
victims of crimes pay for expenses including medical and dental costs,
counseling, lost wages, and temporary lodging expenses that result from the
crime.
