2020 race: Kamala Harris’s record on criminal reform is under scrutiny

Kamala Harris has come under tough criticism — and some praise — over her past work as a top prosecutor.

California senator Kamala Harris. Picture: AFP

While many will hail the choice of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate, the US senator from California has come under tough criticism — and some praise — over her past work as a top prosecutor.

Senator Harris, the first woman and the first black attorney-general in the Golden State, portrayed herself as a progressive reformer during her own presidential bid, but some have cast doubts on that claim.

“Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state’s attorney-general, Ms Harris opposed them or stayed silent,” law professor Lara Bazelon wrote last year. “Harris turned legal technicalities into weapons so she could cement injustices,” Professor Bazelon wrote in The New York Times.

The daily Sacramento Bee wrote in a June editorial: “Kamala Harris had a reputation in California as a prosecutor and attorney-general who waited rather than led, who moved on controversial issues only once she saw what was politically viable.”

Senator Harris has also been criticised for largely failing to intervene in cases involving police violence.

While serving as attorney-general in 2016, for example, she opposed a bill to investigate deadly police shootings following the death of a stabbing suspect —- shot 21 times by police —- that sparked huge protests.

But despite her controversial record on criminal justice, she has also been lauded for fighting for progressive change.

Her most successful program, called “Back on Track”, called for non-violent first-time drug offenders to avoid jail by getting a high school diploma.

But arguably her biggest achievement in the eyes of civil rights activists and police, was Open Justice, an online portal that made a wide range of criminal justice data available to the public, including the number of deaths and injuries in police custody.

Jack Pitney, a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College in California, stressed that in looking at Senator Harris’s tenure as attorney-general, one must take into account that she was a prosecutor applying the law, rather than a legislator.

AFP