Criminal Justice
Position: We recognize that the best way to prevent crime is to provide an adequate safety net for our nation's poor. To ensure that "justice" is returned to our criminal justice system, we must transform it from purely punitive to one based upon a set of restorative principles. It must be "justice for all," equally applied regardless of gender or race, for white-collar as well as blue-collar crimes. To these ends we must: - Abolish the death penalty.
- End the so-called War on Drugs. (Treat addiction, educate for public health, and regulate intoxicants.)
- Bring an end to mandatory and determinate sentencing, with the immediate removal of nonviolent crimes from "strikes lists."
- Support community policing and Civilian Oversight Boards.
- Stop racial profiling.
- Support the Brady Bill, the Assault Weapons Ban, and close the Gun Show Loophole.
- Focus on crime prevention, rehabilitation of offenders, and drug, alcohol, and mental health treatment.
- Provide a wide array of transition services to returning ex-offenders, including job training, housing, health care, and on-going drug and mental health treatment, in order to reduce recidivism.
- Create partnerships between corrections departments and communities to ensure safety.
- Call on governments to automatically restore full, unconditional voting rights to ex-offenders.
Click here to add References or Legislation.
References:
Issue 60) Criminal Justice
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Comments
From:
Dan Sterner
on April 16, 2006 at 03:03 AM
I fully agree on the drug war and three strikes type laws, all they've managed to do is to fill prisons. We're now the most imprisoned nation in the world and the system is still growing. The racial disparities are stark, the death rates for the harder drugs have actually climbed a great deal rather
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From:
rebecca berry
on August 7, 2005 at 05:15 PM
Right now in WA (and it's no stretch to imagine this may be the case elsewhere) the courts are being funded almost entirely by fines. Judges are being forced to assign unnecissarily hefty fines. Of course those that can afford a decent attorney are often able to get these fines waived. So the eff
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From:
Anonymous
on April 23, 2004 at 12:06 AM
Altough this may not be a popular view, there is a definite and important role for the punitive function of criminal justice. There are many offenders who are not responsive to, nor desirous of, rehabilitation efforts and pose a serious and on-going risk to community safety.
Another overl
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From:
Daniel
on August 30, 2005 at 11:35 AM
Hands off our guns, including so-called "assault weapons." If you want a truly progressive platform, you'll craft one that promotes gun responsibility and gun safety rather than one that advocates putting semi-automatics only in the hand of law enforcement and criminals - leaving us law-abiding cit
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From:
Anonymous
on August 28, 2004 at 02:18 AM
how about affirmative action in sentencing to redress sentencing inequalities?
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From:
Justin
on July 22, 2004 at 04:03 PM
here's something with backbone - repeal the 2nd amendment
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From:
Dwight
on March 5, 2006 at 07:53 PM
Given the Bush-Cheney attacks upon the legal system, it makes sense to me to have a platform to preserve and protect the civil rights of all people in the United States or under the control of or assigned control of the United States government or of contractors to the United States government.
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From:
david
on January 16, 2005 at 10:46 AM
Since we dont seem to have any rehabilitation built into the cage idea of prison, those entering have little chance of returning to society better, indeed, evidence seems to suggest prison makes them better criminals. I feel, we should reserve the cages for those who shouldnt ever be allowed to ret
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From:
Tom Kertes
on October 24, 2004 at 02:19 PM
Drug use should be considered a health care issue, not a criminal justice issue.
Drug policy should therefore fit within the framework of universal health care.
added link: Liberation Learning
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From:
Anonymous
on June 2, 2004 at 07:17 PM
I am responding to the other posted comments about defendants not seeking rehabilitation without the "hammer" of serious penalties. It is not the state's business whether a person seeks treatment or not. If a person wants treatment, it should be available to him or her on demand without the wait l
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From:
Anonymous
on April 22, 2004 at 11:43 PM
Determinate sentencing is preferable to parole and other indeterminate sentencing. It provides consistent sentencing from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and treats defendants who commit the same crimes consistently.
Moreover it provides victims with some degree of "truth in sentencing."
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