Kamala Harris's 'tough on crime' record casts doubt on her commitment to carry out actual police reforms
Before being announced as the running mate of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Senator Kamala Harris' own presidential campaign teetered off course, in part because of her controversial record on criminal justice issues. As a county prosecutor, district attorney and state attorney general, her history of being "tough on crime" is diametrically opposed to her claims of being a "progressive prosecutor".
Her previous record shows that she went after "quality of life" crimes like panhandling, prostitution, graffiti, loitering, driving under the influence and living in unapproved homeless encampments — crimes that affect homeless people, and people of color from low-income backgrounds. She was also blasted for "fighting for harsher sentences, larger bail requirements, longer prison terms, more prosecution of petty crimes, greater criminal justice involvement in low-income and minority communities, less due process for people in the system, less transparency, and less accountability for bad cops".
The most damaging of all was her championing state legislation around truancy in school, where parents whose children did not attend elementary school regularly, could be prosecuted. This law disproportionately affected poor households, single-mother families, and people of color and children with chronic illnesses.
One of the heartbreaking cases prosecuted under this law was of Cheree Peoples, a poor Black single mother who was arrested under the program because her daughter Kayla missed school often because of chronic and painful sickle cell anemia. She had to endure a lengthy two-year court battle to clear her name. This after enduring the humiliation of being handcuffed and whisked away to jail.
Harris also went after sex workers in the guise of cracking down on human trafficking. Besides organized stings in immigrant neighborhoods, she also targeted websites such as 'Backpage' — one of the ways in which sex work can be solicited without the danger of 'walking the streets'. Since then, Harris has changed her tune and said she is "in favor" of decriminalizing sex work.
While her record is not all bad — for instance, she started a “re-entry” program called 'Back on Track' that aimed to keep young low-level offenders out of jail if they went to school and kept a job — she built her career and profited by championing the excessive policing of people of color.
Post-Black Lives Matter movement, this career record is a liability and as much as Harris has tried to do an about-turn on these issues, it is what torpedoed her presidential campaign. It also casts doubts over what kind of action she'll champion around police reforms that center around defunding the police and reinvesting that money in social programs that go after the systemic root causes rather than individual crimes.
And yet, it is perhaps this very record that got her selected as a running mate. As the Democrats try to provide a more centrist alternative to Trump right-wing populism, Harris seems to be the perfect choice to appeal to Conservative voters since the Democrats believe they already have liberal and Black voters in their pocket because of the anger against President Donald Trump.
Harris' track record combined with the right noises around "progressive politics" and her appeal as a Black woman candidate is exactly the 'middle of the road' approach the Democratic Party seems to be favoring.