WASHINGTON (CNS) – Over the last two years, criminal justice reform has become the focus of both Democrats and Republicans as prison overcrowding drives up government spending on incarceration and law enforcement.
With Election Day nearing, presidential candidates have been refining their views on the issue.
A review of the campaign platforms of the major parties and their candidates, along with statements from the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, reveal that there has been a broad interest in reform, but with no significant action by Congress even though a major bill is pending in the House of Representatives.
The party platforms address several related issues, including mass incarceration, mandatory minimum sentencing, rehabilitation and community re-entry, and alternatives to incarceration.
Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton have said little about criminal justice issues, mostly limiting their comments to responses in media interviews or town hall meetings during the long campaign.
While the U.S. is home to 5 percent of the world’s population, it houses a quarter of the world’s prison population. Some observers attribute the disparity to the growth of private prisons, which often have minimum occupancy policies that can appear to incentivize prison sentences for minor offenses. Private prisons housed 8.5 percent of U.S. inmates in 2013.
The Department of Justice said in August that it was ending its relationships with private prisons after an audit found that the private operations have more safety and security hitches than those run by the government.
The bishops spoke strongly against private prisons in a 2015 report on the immigrant detention system. Debbie McDermott, who runs the California Catholic Conference’s restorative justice office, said, “We do not have a stance on private prisons but we are generally not in favor.”
The USCCB has repeatedly stated that mass incarceration and the death penalty disproportionately affect poor and minority communities.
The Republican Party platform makes no mention of the number of people being incarcerated, but focuses on “over-criminalization.” It says there are too many acts considered criminal in the U.S. code today and seeks to decrease the number of criminal offenses.
Trump has sparingly commented on most criminal justice reform topics aside from police officers’ rights. Most of his ideas come from his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” in which he argued that too many convicted violent felons were on parole.
“Clearly, we don’t have too many people in prison,” Trump wrote. “Quite the opposite.”
When asked in a GOP town hall last spring how he would reform the prison system, Trump said he would increase prison privatization.
The Democratic platform, with which Hillary Clinton, the party’s presidential nominee, often aligns, says the party aims to end both mass incarceration and private prison contracts. Clinton echoed these goals on her campaign website, which has a section devoted to criminal justice reform.
“We must not create private industry incentives that may contribute — or have the appearance of contributing — to over-incarceration,” the platform states.
When it comes to mandatory minimum sentencing, the USCCB has repeatedly supported bipartisan bills to reduce sentences for drug- and firearm-related crimes. Such legislation would have made changes in sentencing retroactive for inmates serving time on related charges.
In a 2000 statement, “Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice,” the bishops explicitly rejected “rigid mandatory sentencing.”
The GOP platform recognizes mandatory minimums as an important tool for reducing crime, but advocates would consider some exceptions for nonviolent offenders including drug offenders and those with mental health, drug or alcohol issues. The party wants mandatory prison time for assaults involving serious injuries to police officers.
Trump expands the stance, advocating mandatory prison time for all assaults on police and a mandatory death sentence for anyone who kills a police officer. He also advocates mandatory prison time for undocumented immigrants who are caught illegally crossing the border.
In addition, Trump said in December he wanted to see more programs such as Project Exile in Richmond, Virginia, which ensured five-year prison sentences for violent felons who committed drug-related crimes.
The Democratic National Committee said in its platform that it would “reform” mandatory minimum sentences but did not offer specifics. Clinton has said she would cut the minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses in half and reform the “strike” system, making drug offenses no longer a strike on one’s record and reducing the mandatory penalties for second and third strikes.
It should be noted that the USCCB sees prison time as a chance for rehabilitation and preparation for re-entry into society. It has supported bills to fund re-entry programs including education, literacy training, job placement and substance abuse treatment. It also advocates spiritual care for inmates, with the California bishops’ conference pushing for increased prison access for Catholic chaplains.
The GOP platform advocates literacy and vocational training as well, though Trump has never commented on what re-entry programs, if any, he advocates in prisons. His campaign did not respond when Catholic News Service asked about his stance.
The DNC also does not mention what re-entry programs it supports. Meanwhile, Clinton’s platform says she will invest $5 billion in job re-entry programs, which presumably would include vocational training.
The bishops’ 2000 letter warns against giving up on inmates who could be rehabilitated.
“The common good is undermined by criminal behavior that threatens the lives and dignity of others and by policies that seem to give up on those who have broken the law (offering too little treatment and too few alternatives to either years in prison or the execution of those who have been convicted of terrible crimes).”
The letter goes on to call for funding allocated for prison construction to instead pay for parole and probation programs aimed at rehabilitation. It also supports drug courts that offer rehab services to drug addicts in place of incarceration.
The GOP supports similar efforts, calling for first-time nonviolent offenders to be diverted from prison to community service, accountability, drug and veterans’ treatment courts and guidance from faith-based institutions that have proven rehabilitation records. The GOP said it will build on already proven effective measures.
Trump has said he supports rehabilitation services for drug addicts, though it is unclear whether these would be in prison or as an alternative to incarceration.
In a video on the “drug epidemic,” Trump said, “The people that are in trouble, the people that are addicted, we’re going to work with them and try and make them better, and we will make them better.”
The DNC’s platform is nearly identical to the GOP’s on incarceration alternatives, saying the party will build on options to incarceration that have been proven to work. Clinton said that as president she would urge federal prosecutors to choose treatment in place of incarceration for low-level nonviolent drug offenders.