Presidential Preview: Criminal justice

In advance of the 2024 presidential election, The Chronicle is breaking down each candidate’s stance on priority issues, examining their platform and political history to keep voters in the Duke and Durham community informed. In this edition, we take a look at criminal justice:

Criminal justice issues have received increased political attention in the United States in recent years.

While Democrats have leaned toward promoting criminal justice reform policies in the wake of the May 2020 killing of George Floyd and other recorded instances of police brutality, Republicans have pushed for more aggressive law enforcement in response to misleading rhetoric tying rising immigration rates to crime.

Republican nominee Donald Trump is continuing to run on a tough-on-crime agenda, while Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is aiming to strike a balance between emphasizing her experience as a prosecutor and promoting more progressive gun reforms.

North Carolinian stances

In North Carolina, a June poll commissioned by business advocacy group N.C. Chamber suggested that about 69% of voters support criminal justice reform and 38% strongly support it — including Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

The same poll found that 72% of North Carolinians support — and 49% strongly support — a policy reform to “expunge criminal records when a case is dismissed or the accused is found not guilty.” Support is strong across Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

Durham has made strides to mend disparities in the criminal justice system through the Durham Expunction and Restoration (DEAR) program, which provides free legal services for city residents to aid in getting criminal records expunged, restoring driver’s licenses and acquiring certificates of relief.

But although Harris has a long professional history in prosecution, her policy stances on criminal justice issues are somewhat complicated. The Democratic nominee has been characterized by competing narratives of being overly tough and soft on crime, while her campaign has worked to define her as a generally moderate prosecutor who has supported both progressive criminal justice reform policies and aggressive crackdowns on serious violations.

Harris has described herself as a “progressive prosecutor,” and while some have challenged the characterization, she did implement a number of reforms during her time as a California official.

While district attorney, Harris created a program to provide young offenders with housing, job training and substance abuse treatment. As attorney general, she implemented bias training for police officers and launched OpenJustice, an online portal that increased public access to criminal justice data in California.

Nevertheless, several of Harris’ more controversial moves during her early days have come back to haunt her 2024 campaign.

Harris has been challenged over her stance on the death penalty following a 2004 case where she declined to seek the death penalty for a gang member who was convicted of fatally shooting a police officer. While she faced intense backlash from within her own party at the time, the move is in line with Democratic Party’s current platform that advocates for abolishing the death penalty.

While district attorney, Harris expressed support for a policy to prosecute the parents of habitually absent schoolchildren, charging them with a misdemeanor with punishment in the form of fines up to $2,500 and possible jail time. The policy was passed by the state legislature in 2011 and overseen by then-Attorney General Harris.

A campaign aide spoke in support of the policy in July, emphasizing that “truancy dropped by 33%” as a result and that the law was aimed at children who were “missing 60 to 80 days out of a 180-day school year."

However, others criticized the move for disproportionately affecting Black families. Harris expressed regret for the policy’s “unintended consequences” in 2019, noting that it was “never the intention” for parents to be criminalized.

In 2010, Harris’ office opposed DNA testing for Kevin Cooper, a Black man who had been on California’s death row for allegedly killing a white family of four in 1983, even though there was a lack of evidence. A 2018 New York Times opinion article detailing misconduct by the police involved in Cooper’s case — which the author argued was racially motivated — charged Harris with refusing to allow the testing and “show[ing] no interest in the case.”

Harris later advocated for allowing the testing, reporting that she “regretted that she had not allowed it” previously.

As vice president, Harris has supported the Biden administration’s criminal justice agenda that aims to “advance effective, accountable policing, build trust and improve public safety.”

In 2021, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law, an $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill to counter the COVID-19 pandemic that also allotted $15 billion toward public safety and violence prevention efforts as part of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to bring down crime levels.

Biden signed Executive Order 14074 in May 2022 to emphasize the administration’s commitment to ensuring “fairness and accountability” within the criminal justice system and addressing racial disparities in treatment by law enforcement. The order’s provisions include banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants unless imminent danger could arise, establishing a national “law enforcement accountability” database and ensuring “timely” and “thorough” investigations into reports of excessive force, among others.

A month after the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the Biden-Harris administration signed the Safer Communities Act into law. This included new incentives for state-level red flag laws, which allow courts to remove guns from people deemed a threat to themselves or others, as well as expansions to background checks and to an existing law that prevents those convicted of domestic abuse from owning a gun.

With the Biden-Harris administration making strides toward criminal justice reform, Harris aims to use these to make her nascent 2024 campaign stronger.

The Harris campaign’s newly released official platform on criminal justice reform focuses primarily on reducing gun violence and crime.

The Democratic nominee promises to “ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require universal background checks and support red flag laws.” She also aims to “continue to invest in funding law enforcement, including the hiring and training of officers” and “build upon proven gun violence prevention programs.”

This signifies a shift in language from the Democratic Party’s prior messaging on criminal justice, which in 2020 advocated for “overhaul[ing] the criminal justice system from top to bottom.”

Harris previously expressed support for the “defund the police” movement in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, though her comments were later walked back by a campaign official once she was selected as Biden’s vice president.

The Democratic Party has since moved away from such rhetoric — the current platform mentions “police” only once in the section on criminal justice, advocating for programs that “foster community trust and safety” and “alleviate burdens on police.”

In addition to her proposals for reducing gun violence, Harris’ 2024 campaign platform on “ensur[ing] safety and justice for all” also includes sections on securing the nation’s borders — while pursuing “comprehensive reform” of the American immigration system — and tackling the opioid and fentanyl crisis.

With two-thirds of the public favoring tackling crime at its roots compared to 32% favoring strict sentencing measures, Democrats aim to juxtapose Harris’ reform-based plans with Trump’s strong rhetoric supporting an increasingly more punitive approach.

Donald Trump

Trump has remained steadfast in his support for the police throughout his political career, also consistently promoting harsh sentencing in line with the Republican Party’s traditional criminal justice agenda.

Before Trump entered the Republican sphere, the GOP platform advocated for harsh prison sentencing, the death penalty and restorative justice policies.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump described himself as the “law-and-order candidate,” railed against inner-city crime and advocated for the death penalty.

Trump adhered to his campaign promises while in the Oval Office by signing a historic piece of criminal justice reform legislation — The First Step Act — into law in December 2018. This law represented a bipartisan effort to decrease federal prison populations, reduce recidivism rates and improve living conditions for the incarcerated.

While Trump initially took full credit for passing the act, he slowly began to distance himself from the legislation after it failed to gain him the increase in support from Black and moderate voters he hoped for. On the campaign trail in 2020, Trump attacked the legislation and criticized Democrats over calls to defund the police.

In 2017, Trump signed three executive orders to mobilize support, increase funding and expand protection laws for law enforcement officers. The same year, he rescinded one of President Barack Obama’s policies that limited the distribution of military-grade weapons to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

In July 2020, the Trump administration launched “Operation Legend” — an effort to combat violent crime in cities by working with state and local law enforcement officials. The program ended when Trump left office, having resulted in over 6,000 arrests and over 2,600 firearms seized.

The former president also threatened to bring the National Guard into major cities to quell protests in 2020, an approach he has restated support for during his 2024 campaign.

After Trump fell short in his 2020 bid for reelection, hundreds of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent a joint session of Congress from certifying the electoral college votes in favor of Biden. The ensuing riot resulted in over $2.8 million dollars in damage and at least five deaths, including four Trump supporters and one Capitol Police officer.

Trump has since been criticized for not taking action to stop the insurrection, as reports came out that the then-president watched the violence unfold from inside the Oval Office and refused pleas from staff and family members to call off his supporters.

In his current quest to regain the presidency, Trump is continuing to characterize himself as the “law-and-order” candidate. His campaign platform promises to “stop the migrant crime epidemic, demolish the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence and lock up violent offenders.”

Several recent studies have found that immigrants do not commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans.

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to “hush money” payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. He currently has two other criminal cases pending: an election interference case in Georgia and a federal election fraud case. The former president was also charged with 40 felony counts related to obstructing justice and retaining classified documents after he left the White House, but the case was thrown out by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, Trinity ‘03, in July.

At a Sept. 6 campaign rally in Charlotte, Trump accepted the endorsement of the National Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police union. During his speech, he pledged to bolster police immunity and reignite the use of the “stop and frisk” method — a practice whereby officers can question a person whom they have reasonable suspicion has committed a crime that was ruled unconstitutional in certain cases in 2013.

As the perception of crime remains a potent anxiety for many Americans despite lowered rates, Trump has amped up his tough-on-crime rhetoric and focused on attacking the Harris campaign. He promised to “stop the Kamala crime wave” and crack down on “Marxist prosecutors” at campaign events in the fall.

However, some police officers have endorsed Harris, citing Trump’s support of rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

“He doesn’t care that it was because he encouraged a mob of violent insurrectionists to march on the Capitol that five officers died … that day,” said Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer.

Trump said in July that he would “absolutely” pardon some of those convicted for their actions on Jan 6.

Project 2025, a conservative federal policy agenda that promotes the restructuring of the executive branch, supports minimum sentences for violent crimes, the death penalty and deployment of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act for aggressive drug prosecution.

Although Trump denies any sort of connection to the policy playbook, CNN reported in July that over 240 people have ties to both Project 2025 and Trump, and CBS found that over a third of the over-900-page document’s provisions align with policies outlined in Trump’s campaign platform.

Other candidates

Independent candidate Cornel West’s platform centers around “transformative justice,” which seeks to “fundamentally reimagine the very essence of our criminal justice system and societal structures. His criminal justice policies focus on reducing gun violence through implementing mandatory safety trainings and background checks for new gun owners, instituting a national registry for civilian-owned firearms and passing a national red flag law.

Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver supports increasing police accountability by ending qualified immunity, ending the “failed war on drugs” and removing all federal laws criminalizing marijuana use and possession.

Green Party nominee Jill Stein’s platform states her support for “end[ing] mass incarceration, police brutality and systemic injustice.”