Detail of Sen. Sanders 'Racial Justice' Plan and Gov. O'Malley's 'Criminal Justice' Plan
Last edited Tue Aug 11, 2015, 07:54 AM - Edit history (2)
Here is a view of Bernie Sanders' and Martin O'Malley's racial and criminal justice plans presented as the candidate's wrote them, but dissected and grouped in a way that I hope will provide a good comparison of the two important documents.
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Policing
Sanders:
•We must demilitarize our police forces so they don’t look and act like invading armies.
•We must invest in community policing. Only when we get officers into the communities, working within neighborhoods before trouble arises, do we develop the relationships necessary to make our communities safer together. Among other things, that means increasing civilian oversight of police departments.
•We need police forces that reflect the diversity of our communities.
At the federal level we need to establish a new model police training program that reorients the way we do law enforcement in this country. With input from a broad segment of the community including activists and leaders from organizations like Black Lives Matter we will reinvent how we police America.
•We need to federally fund and require body cameras for law enforcement officers to make it easier to hold them accountable.
Our Justice Department must aggressively investigate and prosecute police officers who break the law and hold them accountable for their actions.
•We need to require police departments and states to provide public reports on all police shootings and deaths that take place while in police custody.
•We need new rules on the allowable use of force. Police officers need to be trained to de-escalate confrontations and to humanely interact with people who have mental illnesses. States and localities that make progress in this area should get more federal justice grant money. Those that do not should get their funding slashed.
•We need to make sure the federal resources are there to crack down on the illegal activities of hate groups.
O'Malley:
•Mandate and Expand Data Reporting. The FBI does not collect data on police-involved shootings. Local data is also poor and incomplete. O’Malley has called for—and will strongly support—legislation to require law enforcement agencies to report data on all police-involved shootings, custodial deaths, discourtesy complaints, and use of excessive force. This data should be centralized in a universal database and made publicly available, allowing communities to observe trends and develop policy responses when necessary.
•Establish a National Use of Force Standard. State laws governing when police officers can use excessive force vary greatly. In order to protect citizen and officer safety, O’Malley will put forward national guidelines on the use of force, linked to the expanded mandatory reporting detailed above. He will support legislation to require states to review and amend their own use of force laws to comply with federal guidelines.
•Expand Community Collaboration and Civilian Review of Police Departments. O’Malley would reward and encourage police departments to implement best practices in goal-oriented community policing, including through the eligibility criteria in federal grant programs. These include undergoing racial bias training and crisis de-escalation training; establishing internal accountability measures to track and review civilian complaints and address officer misconduct; and creating and empowering civilian review boards to independently monitor and audit policing cases.
•Use Technology to Advance Transparency. Technology—including but not limited to body cameras—can improve policing and build community trust in law enforcement. But it must meet community and local law enforcement needs, without infringing on individual rights.
•O’Malley will work with law enforcement, advocates, and other stakeholders to establish national standards for deploying and developing technology, while protecting privacy and communities’ access to data produced by body cameras or similar tools.
•Encourage Independent Investigations of Policing Cases. Local prosecutors must work closely with local police on a day-to-day basis, creating possible conflicts of interest in cases regarding police misconduct. As a result, states and cities have begun to appoint special independent prosecutors—or prosecutors from other jurisdictions—in cases where police use deadly force. O’Malley will make these measures model practices, and support legislation to encourage all states to adopt them.
•Strengthen Federal Civil Rights Protections. Under the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has successfully launched investigations into the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown. However, the Department’s ability to prosecute cases is limited because federal officials must meet a very high legal standard to bring civil rights charges. O’Malley would call on Congress to revise this standard so that the federal government can act as an effective backstop for ensuring justice.
•Reform Civil Asset Forfeiture to Prioritize Public Safety. Civil forfeiture allows law enforcement to seize any property they allege is involved in a crime, even if the owner has not been charged or convicted. Originally designed as a way to cripple large criminal organizations, civil forfeiture is now rarely used to address actual crime and is too often abused. O’Malley will support bipartisan efforts in Congress to reform civil forfeiture statutes, reorienting law enforcement activity toward improving public safety and community policing
•Phase Out Federal For-Profit Prisons. This includes closing for-profit immigration detention centers, while using alternatives to detention in the immigration context whenever possible
•Make Robust Investments in Drug Treatment. O’Malley will work to expand existing federal grants to states to support comprehensive drug treatment systems. He will call for tripling the number of states eligible for grants, as well as increasing the aid provided to each state. He will call for requiring states to make matching investments—ensuring that addiction is treated, and not ignored, at the local level. He will also support regulations and legislation to expand evidence-based treatment for addiction under Medicare and Medicaid.
•Make Robust Investments in Community Mental Health Infrastructure. Although the rate of serious mental illness is two to six times higher among incarcerated populations, more than 80 percent of people with mental illness in jails and prisons do not receive care. O’Malley will invest to provide adequate mental health treatment and substance abuse treatment within correctional facilities. Additionally, he will call for community-based recovery for individuals suffering from mental illness, setting a national target for reducing the number of Americans with serious mental illness behind bars. He will work with Congress to make critically needed investments in housing, supported employment, and outpatient treatment.
•Train and Equip Law Enforcement to Serve People in Crisis. Police officers have increasingly become first responders to people with mental illness or substance abuse problems, often without adequate training. O’Malley will establish federal guidelines for law enforcement on how to best serve people in crisis—including de-escalating encounters, equipping specialized staff and response teams, and intervening in partnership with civilian service providers. He will use existing federal funds to support state Crisis Intervention Training, work with Congress to make additional investments, and require states to adopt federal crisis intervention guidelines.
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Voting Rights
Sanders:
•We need to re-enfranchise the more than two million African Americans who have had their right to vote taken away by a felony conviction.
•Congress must restore the Voting Rights Act’s “pre-clearance” provision, which extended protections to minority voters in states where they were clearly needed.
•We must expand the Act’s scope so that every American, regardless of skin color or national origin, is able to vote freely.
•We need to make Election Day a federal holiday to increase voters’ ability to participate.
•We must make early voting an option for voters who work or study and need the flexibility to vote on evenings or weekends.
•We must make no-fault absentee ballots an option for all Americans.
Every American over 18 must be registered to vote automatically, so that students and working people can make their voices heard at the ballot box.
•We must put an end to discriminatory laws and the purging of minority-community names from voting rolls.
•We need to make sure that there are sufficient polling places and poll workers to prevent long lines from forming at the polls anywhere.
O'Malley:
•Restore Voting Rights to People with Felony Records. All those who served time and reentered society should be allowed to vote. O’Malley will call for and strongly support legislation restoring voting rights to individuals with felony records. He will explore and take advantage of every opportunity to use federal funds and administrative solutions to encourage states to restore voting rights.
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Sentencing and Prisons
Sanders:
•Millions of lives have been destroyed because people are in jail for nonviolent crimes. For decades, we have been engaged in a failed “War on Drugs” with racially-biased mandatory minimums that punish people of color unfairly.
•It is an obscenity that we stigmatize so many young Americans with a criminal record for smoking marijuana, but not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy. This must change.
•If current trends continue, one in four black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during their lifetime. Blacks are imprisoned at six times the rate of whites and a report by the Department of Justice found that blacks were three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop, compared to white motorists. African-Americans are twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police. This is an unspeakable tragedy.
•It is morally repugnant and a national tragedy that we have privatized prisons all over America. In my view, corporations should not be allowed to make a profit by building more jails and keeping more Americans behind bars. We have got to end the private-for-profit prison racket in America. Profiting off the misery of incarcerated people is immoral and it is immoral to take campaign contributions from the private prison industry or its lobbyists.
•The measure of success for law enforcement should not be how many people get locked up. We need to invest in drug courts as well as medical and mental health interventions for people with substance abuse problems, so that people struggling with addiction do not end up in prison, they end up in treatment.
•For people who have committed crimes that have landed them in jail, there needs to be a path back from prison. The federal system of parole needs to be reinstated. We need real education and real skills training for the incarcerated.
•We must end the over incarceration of nonviolent young Americans who do not pose a serious threat to our society. It is an international embarrassment that we have more people locked up in jail than any other country on earth – more than even the Communist totalitarian state of China. That has got to end.
•We must address the lingering unjust stereotypes that lead to the labeling of black youths as “thugs.” We know the truth that, like every community in this country, the vast majority of people of color are trying to work hard, play by the rules and raise their children. It’s time to stop demonizing minority communities.
•We must reform our criminal justice system to ensure fairness and justice for people of color.
•We need to ban prisons for profit, which result in an over-incentive to arrest, jail and detain, in order to keep prison beds full.
•We need to turn back from the failed “War on Drugs” and eliminate mandatory minimums which result in sentencing disparities between black and white people.
•We need to invest in drug courts and medical and mental health interventions for people with substance abuse problems, so that they do not end up in prison, they end up in treatment.
•We need to boost investments for programs that help people who have gone to jail rebuild their lives with education and job training
O'Malley:
•Ban the Box. O’Malley will use existing federal dollars to encourage states to adopt “fair chance” policies, which direct employers to delay criminal record inquiries and individually assess job applicants based on their qualifications. He will make the federal government a model employer by adopting fair chance hiring policies for all federal contractors and agencies.
•Expunge or Seal Criminal Records. O’Malley will also support legislation that provides paths to recourse for people with criminal records. This includes automatically expunging or sealing juvenile records, so young people have a fair chance to turn around their lives; allowing some categories of formerly incarcerated people to petition a court to seal their records; and expunging the records of arrests that did not lead to formal charges.
•Ensure Access to Temporary Support. O’Malley will call for and strongly support legislation that would end the drug felon ban on access to SNAP and TANF assistance. Formerly incarcerated people and their families should have access to crucial support to help them get on their feet after serving their time.
•Invest in Job-Training Programs That Work. Roughly 9 million people return home from jail, and 650,000 from prison, every year. Getting and keeping a job is crucial to their ability to reenter their communities—and thus to reducing recidivism, and incarceration costs, overall. O’Malley will build on successful programs in Maryland and other states to train, place, and support those exiting the criminal justice system so they can secure employment. As president, he will work with Congress to secure additional funding for—and legislation that expands—community-based job training programs.
•Support Reentry Programming. Since 2008, the bipartisan Second Chance Act has funded critical community services that help people return to their families from prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities. O’Malley will work with Congress to reauthorize and expand funding for Second Chance Act programs, and other important services that ease the transition back to the outside world. Such services include referrals for housing and benefits, substance abuse treatment, mentoring, education, and job training.
•Expand Good Time Credits. O’Malley will support legislation to allow people in federal prison to earn sentence-reduction credits by completing education and reentry programs. More broadly, he will support evidence-based, cost-effective reforms that allow people in prisons or jails to earn more good time credit for greater sentence reductions than federal law currently allows.
•Support Access to Higher Education in Prison. O’Malley will use existing funds and work with Congress to support multi-year educational and vocational training programs in correctional facilities, including providing funding for professional teachers and staff. He will also support legislation and take executive action to restore eligibility for Pell Grants for people in state and federal prison, which was eliminated in the 1994 crime bill. These investments will increase individuals’ chances of finding jobs once they’ve done their time, and decrease their chances of cycling back into prison later in life.
•Dramatically Reduce the Use of Solitary Confinement and Ban Solitary for Juveniles. Research shows that prisoners subjected to prolonged isolation may experience depression, rage, claustrophobia, hallucinations, and severe psychosis that can lead to random violence or suicide. Federal judges have called the long-term lack of interaction, mental stimulus, and exposure to nature “beyond what most humans can psychologically tolerate”. As president, O’Malley will reverse the runaway growth of solitary confinement, limiting its use to the most serious in-prison offenders. He will also fight to pass legislation banning the federal use of solitary confinement for juveniles nationally.
•Eliminate the Sentencing Disparity Between Crack and Powder Cocaine. This sentencing disparity has resulted in vast racial disparities within the justice system. Before Congress lowered the sentencing ratio in 2010 from 100:1 to 18:1, unjustifiably higher penalties for crack offenses led to African Americans serving roughly as much time for non-violent offenses as whites for violent offenses. O’Malley has called for and will continue to support legislation to completely eliminate this sentencing disparity.
•Declassify Marijuana as a Schedule I Drug. O’Malley will direct the Attorney General to move to reclassify marijuana, while supporting bipartisan congressional efforts to legislatively reclassify marijuana as a Schedule II drug.
•Reform Mandatory Minimum Sentencing. Over the past 30 years, mandatory minimum sentences have led to punishments that often do not fit the crime. Unnecessarily harsh sentences for non-violent offenses have not deterred crime, and have disproportionately impacted communities of color. O’Malley will support legislation that eliminates mandatory minimums for low-level drug offenses, while giving judges more flexibility to tailor sentences based on the facts of each case. He will also continue the Department of Justice’s successful Smart on Crime initiative, directing U.S. Attorneys to exercise greater discretion in their charging decisions.
•Forge Consensus for Ending the Death Penalty. The death penalty is a racially biased and ineffective deterrent, and the appeals process is expensive and cruel to surviving family members. O’Malley has long opposed the death penalty as a matter of principle and as a matter of policy. As president, he will continue to oppose capital punishment and work to abolish death sentences under federal laws
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School Discipline
Sanders:
•In addition to the physical violence faced by too many in our country we need look at the lives of black children and address a few other difficult facts. Black children, who make up just 18 percent of preschoolers, account for 48 percent of all out-of-school suspensions before kindergarten. We are failing our black children before kindergarten. Black students were expelled at three times the rate of white students. Black girls were suspended at higher rates than all other girls and most boys. According to the Department of Education, African American students are more likely to suffer harsh punishments – suspensions and arrests – at school
(There is no actual action plan provided by Sen. Sanders for the issue of public school discipline, but I included his recognition of the problem to contrast with O'Malley's reference in his plan)
O'Malley:
•Enforce and Codify Federal Discipline Guidelines. Federal law already prohibits public school districts from administering student discipline in a discriminatory way. The Departments of Education and Justice put forward guidance last year to help schools identify, avoid, and remedy discriminatory discipline, so that all schools ensure equal educational opportunities for all students. O’Malley will enforce this guidance by bringing federal investigations or charges when necessary, and call to codify the guidance into law.
•Reinvest in Other Services and Supports for Teachers and Students. Underinvestment in public education has left many schools with too little funding for counselors, special educators, teacher training, and other needs. This has sometimes created an over-reliance on law enforcement and school resource officers to enforce discipline. O’Malley will invest in federal grants to help deploy counselors and other school staff, including by reprioritizing existing federal funding currently used to place law enforcement officers in schools.
•Ensure Access to Counsel and Legal Assistance. O’Malley would invest to protect every American’s constitutional right to counsel, providing funding for legal aid programs and public defenders, and ensuring their independence.
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Economic Rights
Sen. Sanders includes a section at the end of his plan called 'Addressing Economic Violence'
•We need to give our children, regardless of their race or their income, a fair shot at attending college. That’s why all public universities should be made tuition free.
•We must invest $5.5 billion in a federally-funded youth employment program to employ young people of color who face disproportionately high unemployment rates.
•Knowing that black women earn 64 cents on the dollar compared to white men, we must pass federal legislation to establish pay equity for women.
•We must prevent employers from discriminating against applicants based on criminal history.
•We need to ensure access to quality affordable childcare for working families.
Martin O'Malley makes a summary mention of economic issues in his plan:
•As a nation, we must strive to remove barriers to full participation in the social, economic, and political life of our nation, once and for all. Legal equality is absolutely necessary but not sufficient – we must strive for equal opportunity and a fair shot for everyone. That means helping to ensure good jobs that provide stable incomes; universal, high-quality childcare; affordable housing and homeownership; and greater equity in our education and health care systems—for all Americans.
•Governor O’Malley has already called for a number of actions that would support greater economic security and opportunity for communities of color, including:
•Raising the minimum wage to $15 dollars an hour.
•Empowering labor unions.
•Greatly expanding access to national service and job opportunities for young people.
•Ensuring young people can attend public colleges and universities debt-free.
•Passing comprehensive immigration reform.
•Investing in universal childcare.
In the coming weeks and months, Governor O’Malley will lay out comprehensive plans to address poverty and support the millions of American families striving to join the middle class, as well as put forth agendas to reform K-12 education, address homeownership and the rental crisis, and improve access to affordable healthcare.
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Immigration Rights
Martin O'Mally has included a section on immigration rights on his page which doesn't appear to have a comparative one on Sen. Sander's...
As president, Governor O’Malley will:
•Use Detention Only as a Last Resort. O’Malley will direct the Department of Homeland Security to use alternatives to detention for the vast majority of people, including for all children, families, LGBT individuals, and other vulnerable individuals. This includes using the family placement and community-based supervision policies he successfully implemented in Maryland. He will also work with Congress to repeal mandatory detention and deportation laws, and to codify higher detention standards. When detention must be used, O’Malley will ensure conditions are humane and in line with our basic values as a nation.
•End Operation Streamline. Under Operation Streamline, federal attorneys criminally prosecute, in assembly-line settings, virtually all undocumented immigrants that enter the United States through the Southern border. Fast-track prosecutions and group hearings raise serious concerns regarding the violation of due process. Moreover, thousands of immigrants who try to enter or re-enter the United States are the parents of U.S. citizens attempting to reunite with their loved ones. O’Malley will direct federal prosecutors to focus only on priority entry and reentry cases—those involving national security or serious crimes—and work with Congress to repeal the Operation Streamline program.
•Disentangle Local Law Enforcement From Immigration Enforcement. Our immigration policies have fallen short of their goal to pinpoint and detain individuals who pose a clear and present danger to public safety. Instead, they have created an indiscriminate dragnet that can encourage racial profiling and undermines trust between law enforcement and New American communities. O’Malley has outlined his plan for disentangling law enforcement from immigration enforcement, including by closing loopholes in DOJ guidance that allow DHS agencies to profile Americans based on their ethnicity and religion.
•Set High Standards for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP is the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, and CBP officers must have the support and tools they need to do their jobs well. O’Malley will require CBP to implement the best practices in law enforcement, including equipping officers with body cameras, tracking and disclosing discourtesy and brutality complaints, providing robust training, and holding agents accountable for the use of excessive force.
•Ensure Due Process. O’Malley will also implement critical reforms to expand due process protections in our detention and immigration systems, including providing counsel for immigrants in deportation proceedings, increasing the number of immigration judges and courts, ending telephonic and video hearings for detainees, and ensuring language access.
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There is a great deal of rhetoric included in both candidate's plans. I've separated much of it from their policy prescriptions to better view their actual proposals. Still, it's important enough to their campaigns, so I think it's important enough to visit the respective candidates' pages and read through their reasoning and policy introductions.
read Bernie Sanders' 'Racial Justice' plan in full here: https://berniesanders.com/issues/racial-justice/
read Martin O'Malley's 'Reinvestment and Rehabilitation Framework for America’s Criminal Justice System' here: https://martinomalley.com/policy/criminal-justice/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Like you have the tools to assess it. Ah the Internet... 
of the issues he talks about already as Governor of Maryland.
marijuana. He also increased minority hiring of police, allowed felons to regain their right to vote following their sentences, reduced recidivism, and created a civilian review board over the police.
You might call that magic, but I think it is hard work and the expenditure of political capital.
What FSogol said!! 
and that was early last year.. He was here locally and I had a chance to have a one on one with him and encouraged him to run.. He was starting to give it serious consideration.. everyone else is a follower as far as I am concerned.. He is the first out there and the one with the most thought out policies and plans..
On this we are in 100% total agreement..
