Sanders co-sponsored the "Recidivism Reduction and Second Chance Act of 2007
Sanders voted in favor of the 1994 crime bill authored by Joe Biden. He has since stated that this was due to specific provisions in the bill which he favored, including the Violence Against Women Act and a 10-year assault weapons ban. At the time, Sanders stated, “I have a number of serious problems with the Crime Bill, but one part of it that I vigorously support is the Violence Against Women Act. We urgently need the $1.8 billion in this bill to combat the epidemic of violence against women on the streets and in the homes of America.”
Sanders voted for an amendment to the 1994 crime bill to ban the federal death penalty.
Sanders would legalize marijuana and vacate and expunge past marijuana convictions.
Sanders would raise the threshold for when drug charges are federalized, as federal charges carry longer sentences.
Sanders would ban for-profit prisons.
Sanders would incentivize states and localities to end police departments’ reliance on fines and fees for revenue.
Sanders promises to “stop excessive sentencing with the goal of cutting the incarcerated population in half.”
Sanders would reverse the Trump administration’s guidance on the use of death penalty drugs with the goal of ending the death penalty at the state level.
Sanders would abolish the death penalty.
Sanders would end cash bail.
Sanders would end “three strikes” laws.
Sanders would expand the use of sentencing alternatives, including community supervision and publicly funded halfway houses. This includes funding state-based pilot programs to establish alternatives to incarceration, including models based on restorative justice and free access to treatment and social services.
Sanders would make expungement broadly available.
Sanders would remove legal and regulatory barriers and facilitate access to services for people returning home from jail or prison.
Sanders would create a federal agency responsible for monitoring re-entry.
Sanders would enact fair chance licensing reform to remove unfair restrictions on occupational licensure based on criminal history.
Sanders would guarantee jobs and free job training at trade schools and apprenticeship programs for people leaving jail or prison.
Sanders would decriminalize truancy for all youth and their parents.
Sanders would end solitary confinement for youth.
Sanders would fund states and municipalities to create civilian corps of unarmed first responders for low-level incidents.
Sanders would ban the prosecution of children under the age of 18 in adult courts.
Sanders would triple congressional spending on indigent defense, to $14 billion annually.
Sanders voted against the 1991 crime bill stating, “This is not a crime prevention bill. This is a punishment bill, a retribution bill, a vengeance bill.”
Sanders voted in favor of at least one amendment to the 1994 crime bill to allocate 10.5 billion more in grants to states for prison construction. The Sanders campaign has said this was in an effort to “strip out” other language which would have expanded the crimes for which individuals could be sentenced.
Sanders supported the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2014, which would have adjusted federal mandatory sentencing guidelines for a number of crimes in an effort to reduce the size of the current U.S. prison population. Namely, it would have reduced mandatory sentences for drug offenses, would have expanded the ability of non-violent offenders to reduce their sentences, and would have enabled federal prisoners to seek retroactive sentence adjustment under the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.
Sanders would institute a full review of the current sentencing guidelines and end the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine.
Sanders supports removing questions regarding conviction histories from job and other applications.
Sanders would minimize costs for incarcerated individuals by making prison phone calls and other communications free, and would audit the practices of commissaries.
Sanders would ensure that diversion, community supervision, or treatment programs are free.
Sanders would end mandatory sentencing minimums.
Sanders promises to improve law enforcement accountability by banning the use of facial recognition software for policing; conducting a U.S. Attorney General’s investigation whenever someone is killed in police custody; establish a federal no-call policy; mandating criminal liability for civil rights violations resulting from police misconduct; creating federal standards for the use of body cameras; providing grants for cities and states to establish civilian oversight agencies; creating a federal database of police use of deadly force; ending federal programs that provide military equipment to local police forces; rescinding former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ guidance on consent decrees; and revitalizing the use of DOJ investigations, consent decrees, and federal lawsuits to address systemic constitutional violations by police departments.
Sanders would reinstate a federal parole system and end truth-in-sentencing. People serving long sentences will undergo a “second look” process to make sure their sentence is still appropriate.
Sanders would “invigorate and expand” the compassionate release process so that people with disabilities, the sick and elderly are transitioned out of incarceration whenever possible.
Sanders would create an independent clemency board in the White House that would be removed from the Department of Justice.
Sanders would enact a Prisoner Bill of Rights that guarantees ending solitary confinement; access to free medical care in prisons and jails, including professional and evidence-based substance abuse and trauma-informed mental health treatment; incarcerated trans people have access to all the health care they need; access to free educational and vocational training (this includes ending the ban on Pell Grants for all incarcerated people without any exceptions; living wages and safe working conditions, including maximum work hours, for all incarcerated people for their labor; the right to vote while incarcerated; ending prison gerrymandering, ensuring incarcerated people are counted in their communities, not where they are incarcerated; establishment of an Office of Prisoner Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within the Department of Justice to investigate civil rights complaints from incarcerated individuals and provide independent oversight to make sure that prisoners are housed in safe, healthy, environments; protection from sexual abuse and harassment, including mandatory federal prosecution of prison staff who engage in such misconduct; access to their families — including unlimited visits, phone calls, and video calls; and a determination for the most appropriate setting for people with disabilities and safe, accessible conditions for people with disabilities in prisons and jails.
Sanders would bar criminal charges for school-based behavior that would not otherwise be criminal.
Sanders would use Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision to challenge states that have failed to adequately support the voluntary, community-based mental health services that can divert people with mental illness from ending up in the criminal justice system.
Sanders would prevent juveniles from being housed in adult prisons.
Sanders would ban the practice of any law enforcement agency benefiting from civil asset forfeiture.
Sanders would abolish long mandatory minimum sentences and life-without-parole sentences for youth.
Sanders would mandate and fund police officer training on implicit bias, cultural competency, de-escalation, crisis intervention, adolescent development, and interacting with individuals with disabilities.
“Look, the first thing we have to recognize is that our criminal justice system is not just broken. It is deeply, deeply, deeply broken. It is a dysfunctional system, which is punishing millions of people unnecessarily.”
Then Representative Bernie Sanders while speaking on the floor of the U.S. House of Representative floor on April 13, 1994 stated, “It is my firm belief that clearly there are people in our society who are horribly violent, who are deeply sick and sociopathic, and clearly these people must be put behind bars in order to protect society from them. But it is also my view that through the neglect of our government and through a grossly irrational set of priorities, we are dooming today tens of millions of young people to a future of bitterness, misery, hopelessness, drugs, crime, and violence. And, Mr. Speaker, all the jails in the world — and we already imprison more people per capita than any other country — and all of the executions … in the world will not make that situation right… We can either educate or electrocute. We can create meaningful jobs, rebuilding our society, or we can build more jails. Mr. Speaker, let us create a society of hope and compassion, not one of hate and vengeance.”
Read More
Justice and Safety for All
Bernie Sanders campaign website, 2019
Bernie Sanders unveils plan to overhaul country’s ‘dysfunctional criminal justice system’
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Bernie Sanders On His Criminal Justice Overhaul Plan
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Bernie Sanders has dodged criticism for crime bill vote while others have not
NBC, June 23, 2019 | Heidi Przybyla
Bernie Sanders voted for the 1994 tough-on-crime law. But it’s complicated.
Vox, April 8, 2016 | German Lopez
