The Atlantic: Why Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Like Talking About Criminal Justice

[portlander23]

The Atlantic: Why Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Like Talking About Criminal Justice

“Bernie took the approach that cops were ‘labor,’ not the enemy, their demands should be listened to, and they deserved higher pay,” says Huck Gutman, his former chief of staff and longtime friend. “He promised to open negotiations with them and generally to keep coming back around to income and the economy.”

“You talk about criminal justice, and Bernie Sanders is not the name you would think of,” says Virginia Sloan, founder and president of the Constitution Project and former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, when Sanders was a representative. “He voted reliably [with other liberals] on those issues, but he wasn’t out front on crime and the police and prisons, because his focus was always economic inequality.”

Sanders’s voting record has indeed been consistent. He was one of the few white members of Congress to vote against ending Pell Grants for prisoners, and he opposed President Bill Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill in no uncertain terms. More recently, he has supported the Smarter Sentencing Act and the Second Chance Act, which would reduce prison sentences for low-level offenders and help them reenter society, respectively.

But Sanders’s “it’s the economy, stupid” approach to criminal justice may not be salient nationally, in 2015, the way it was among white Vermonters three decades ago. Reforming police and prisons has become a winning issue, not only among Democrats but also some economically conservative Republicans.

He now speaks of the “four types of violence waged against black and brown Americans”—not only the economic, but also the physical, political, and legal. In late August and early September, he actively consulted with stakeholders in criminal-justice reform, trying to learn as much as he could. He “asked us questions like, ‘How are private prisons defined?’; ‘What's a halfway house?’; and ‘Tell us how to lower rates on phone calls to inmates,’” says Alex Friedmann, the managing editor of Prison Legal News and associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center, and one of the experts consulted.

Sanders learned that his own state has a special relationship with private prisons.

Sanders’s month of study has culminated in a piece of legislation, just introduced, that would abolish private prisons for federal prisoners and encourage states to do the same. To deal with the potential overflow of federal prisoners, the bill would also reinstate the federal parole system, which was discontinued by Congress in 1984.

Matthew Valerio, Vermont’s Defender General, says that for 15 years he has worked closely with both Leahy and Burlington’s representative in the House, Peter Welch, often meeting with them in their Washington offices to discuss justice-system funding.

“But I’ve known Bernie since he was mayor of Burlington,” says Valerio, “and he has never once spoken to me about criminal justice.”

This is a fair assessment of Mr. Sanders. I've been listening to him on the radio for a decade, and it's clear that he's made economic justice the trust of his career. I don't think you could ask him the time of day without it turning into a conversation about how working people are taking it on the chin in America and about how we need to change our disastrous trade polices. It's why we love him and why he's so good at staying on the issues.

While it's not to say that Mr. Sanders has been disinterested in racial justice or criminal justice, it is a fair criticism that economic justice has been his overwhelming focus and that he's had a difficult time speaking of racial justice without intertwining it with economic justice.

This is why I think Black Lives Matter interrupting Mr. Sanders is perhaps the best thing to happen to him and his campaign. Since the interruption in Portland, he's made racial justice a distinct and "parallel" issue:

Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Adds Young Black Woman As New Public Face

“One of my suggestions, he took it and ran with it on Meet the Press, is that racial inequality and economic inequality are parallel issues,” she said. “I you know, economic equality is an issue. It’s something we need to address. But for some people it doesn’t matter how much money you make, it doesn’t matter where you went to school, it doesn’t matter what your parents do. It doesn’t matter that Sandra Bland had a job and was on her way to teach for her alma mater. It doesn’t matter. None of that matters.”

Bernie Sanders took to the advice, Symone Sanders said. She also confronted him with one of the criticisms he faced earlier in the summer, when Black Lives Matter activists rejected his statements about his past civil rights movement work.

(Tip of the hat to Number23 for the citation)

Sanders meets with Black Lives Matter activists

“In the end, I think he got it,” McKesson tweeted.

McKesson, who also has met with officials from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, lauded Sanders for his “candor” and “willingness to be pushed” on his policy and approach. He said he and others also asked Sanders to address police abuse of civil asset forfeiture and said he anticipates Sanders will address that issue in his platform.

McKesson wrote that there were moments during the meeting where they didn’t agree.

“Importantly, he was willing to be pushed and he was,” tweeted McKesson, founder and co-editor of the Ferguson Protestor Newsletter.

Mr. Sanders is not a perfect candidate and this hasn't been his strongest issue. That said, I think he's taken the right message from Black Lives Matter and articulated a strong distinction between economic and racial justice. He may not be articulating the issue with the clarity and urgency that Elizabeth Warren did, but he's moving in that direction and I hope that's where he'll end up before the campaign is over.

[Cali_Democrat]

1. "he opposed President Bill Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill in no uncertain terms"

Ummm....Sanders voted for the 1994 crime bill.

This author is clueless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act

https://votesmart.org/bill/2666/8585/27110/omnibus-crime-bill#.Vg17KPn4_RY

[BlueWaveDem]

5. Someone posted a punditfact link yesterday

About HRC vs Bernie on death penalty and it says Bernie voted for 1994 crime bill, then at the end of the article it stated Bernie opposed it. And this was from a "fact checking" site. Another clueless author.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. You might get alerted on because of too many paragraphs

from the Atlantic article unless you want to get DU in trouble or you had permission from the Atlantic

[99Forever]

3. You might want to trim that OP down substancially.

You are way over the 4 paragraph limit set in the TOS.

Good content, but definately a copyright problem.

Thanks

[portlander23]

4. Trimmed!

[winter is coming]

6. You're still way over the four paragraph limit. n/t