Thread by @ewarren

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world—yet our harshly punitive system isn’t making our communities safer. I've got a plan to make big, structural changes at every step of the criminal justice system: ewar.ren/CriminalJustice

The U.S. makes up 5% of the world's population, but nearly 20% of the world's prison population. And the evidence is clear that there are structural race problems in our criminal justice system. At every level, the system disadvantages or discriminates against people of color.

Let's start by reimagining how we talk about public safety. It's a false choice to suggest a tradeoff between safety and mass incarceration. Instead of putting people in prison, we should focus on services that lift people up and make our communities safer.

Investing in public safety should mean investing in good schools, safe housing, access to mental health services and treatment for addiction, protecting LGBTQ+ Americans, and violence intervention programs diverting young people from criminal activity—before police are involved.

Next, we have to rethink what we choose to criminalize. That starts with repealing the 1994 crime bill—the bulk of which needs to go—and legalizing marijuana. Overcriminalization has filled prisons and devastated communities—and it's time for it to end.

We also have to stop criminalizing poverty. As president, I will fight to end cash bail and limit excessive fines and fees. There’s no justice in imposing high, punitive financial burdens on those who are least able to bear them.

Most police officers sign up so they can protect their communities. But too many people of color have experienced trauma at the hands of law enforcement. It’s time to change how we police: funding what works, and building trust between police and the communities they serve.

Officers who violate someone's constitutional rights are often shielded from civil rights lawsuits by qualified immunity. That’s wrong—and needs to change. When an officer abuses the law, that’s bad for law enforcement, victims, and communities.

Our criminal system places enormous power in the hands of the state, and we need better checks in place to ensure that it's just: by investing in our public defenders, reining in prosecutorial abuses, and allowing those wrongfully imprisoned to challenge their conviction.

The president can grant clemency and pardons herself. I'll empower a clemency board to make recommendations directly to the White House, identifying broad classes of potentially-deserving individuals for review, such as those serving mandatory minimums that should be abolished.

As we fight to end mass incarceration, we need to ensure humane conditions for those who are imprisoned. That means meeting basic human rights standards, protecting vulnerable populations, investing in rehabilitation programs, and expanding mental health and addiction treatment.

The majority of people in prison will be returned to their communities. We should ensure that returning citizens have a chance to succeed, by reducing discrimination and promoting opportunity during reentry and eliminating needlessly punitive parole requirements.

Our system is the result of choices we’ve made—choices that together stack the deck against the poor and the disadvantaged. We can create real law and order and real justice in our country by making long overdue big, structural change.