New York Daily News: Demand criminal justice reform in the next COVID relief bill
by Hilary Shelton and Inimai Chettiar
Each night at the Democratic Convention, a racial justice focus and criminal justice reform message broke through via testimonies from voters and officials. And this week, as the country reels from the shooting of Jacob Blake, Alice Marie Johnson, whose draconian prison sentence was commuted by the president, received a prime-time slot at the Republican Convention to push the message that the party is leading on compassionate reforms.
From a legislative perspective, it is clear that, for the first time in recent memory, criminal justice reform proponents have leverage on major federal bills. Senate Majority Leader McConnell has made it clear that broad contents of the upcoming COVID-19 relief bill will be a product of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and White House representatives allied with the president — all of whom are on record as supporters of reforms.
So, no relief package should pass without emergency criminal and racial justice reforms that are critical to addressing the twin COVID-19 and racial reckoning flashpoints that are gripping the country. As two leaders of color in the massive criminal and racial justice movement, it is disappointing to watch bipartisan measures centered around protecting the justice system from COVID-19 struggle to get attention from lawmakers in relief negotiations.
Public opinion is on our side. The criminal justice reform agenda that we’ve been demanding for decades has won support from a majority of Americans all across the ideological spectrum.
The brutal and senseless killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain and countless others shined a bright light on police brutality and systemic racism in our communities. And now voters across every conceivable divide — party, gender, age, race, education, region — are united in support of criminal justice and policing reforms that could begin the process of addressing the deep racial inequities that plague our broken justice system.
While efforts on the Hill to pass policing reforms have hit a stalemate in the U.S. Senate (for now), the next COVID-19 relief package presents a ripe legislative vehicle to do right by an issue that has long been a necessity. Several critical criminal justice reform measures with bipartisan support are on the table in the HEROES Act, which laid down a strong marker: emergency support for state and local jurisdictions reducing incarceration; measures to move vulnerable sick and elderly people out of prison and into home confinement; and reforms to expand economic opportunities for people who have paid their debt to society and are now free that would also address significant racial disparities. The bill also ensures that small business owners with criminal records could have access to emergency funding that has so far been spent primarily on the wealthiest, well-connected corporate interests.
So why aren’t we hearing demands for the inclusion of these and other reforms in this next relief package?
COVID-19 is ravaging communities of color at a disproportionate rate across America, and the impact is compounded inside prisons and jails, which are filled with a majority of people of color. Mass incarceration stacks prisoners on top of each other like sardines in facilities that are unsafe and unsanitary to begin with, and the invasion of COVID-19 has turned even short sentences for minor, non-violent infractions into a potential death sentence.
As our leaders are silent, the numbers grow ever grimmer: More than 140,000 people incarcerated in the United States have contracted COVID-19, and 932 incarcerated individuals and correctional staff have died from the virus. Dangerous overcrowding, lack of medical resources, and unsanitary conditions have rendered correctional facilities exceptionally vulnerable to outbreak and spread of the disease, and marginalized groups have borne the brunt of this American tragedy.
Opportunity to drive transformational change in this country does not come around often, but today’s racial justice movement has created one. We urge Congress and the White House to seize this opportunity, hold the line, and pass emergency criminal and racial justice reforms now.