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Did Donald Trump Really Do More for Criminal Justice Reform Than Joe Biden?
Biden’s record has so far not measured up to even the low bar that Trump set while in office. The good news for Biden is that he still has five months to make good on some of his promises.
Sep 12, 2024
With the nation’s attention now riveted on U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris vs. former President Donald Trump, it might surprise some people to learn that Joe Biden is still the president of the United States until January 20, 2025. And, while he has arguably accomplished a lot already, he still has a lot of power and time to accomplish a lot more before his one term in the Oval Office comes to an end. We need him to focus on criminal justice reform and the promises he made when he was a candidate running for president in 2019.
When we look back on the past eight years, it is hard not to be struck by the glaring fact that, in his one term as president, Donald Trump’s passage of the First Step Act so far is outshining anything President Biden has done in his four years in office for criminal justice reform at the federal level.
This isn’t to say Trump’s record on reform is stellar. In fact, it leaves much to be desired. But Biden’s record has so far not measured up to even the low bar that Trump set while in office. The good news for Biden is that he still has five months to make good on some of his promises.
We want you to finish strong! If you want your legacy on criminal justice reform to surpass and be far better than your predecessor, you have some work to do before January 20, 2025.
When Trump passed the First Step Act, our organization, JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA), was one of the few justice organizations that opposed the legislation for a variety of reasons, but primarily because we knew that the risk assessment tool would have adverse effects, particularly on many Black and brown people—which is exactly what we have seen happen over the past six years, and was magnified during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the fact remains that more than 33,500 people have been released from prison so far due to the implementation of the First Step Act. This, combined with Trump’s 237 pardons and commutations, currently overshadows Biden’s meager 25 pardons and 132 commutations. Even when you consider Biden’s over 6,500 federal marijuana pardons, his record still pales in comparison with the tens of thousands who have been set free by Trump’s First Step.
Freedom and liberty is one thing. Life and the pursuit of happiness are another. Because without a life to go home to, where a person’s basic human needs are met, freedom isn’t worth much—and it sometimes doesn’t last for very long.
Despite the creation of freedom for some through the First Step Act, overall, Trump’s economic and domestic policies have been a disaster for formerly incarcerated and justice-impacted individuals and harmful to our communities. They may have their freedom, but many did not have housing to go back to, let alone jobs, healthcare, and the resources needed to provide for their bare necessities.
In less than four years, however, President Biden’s legislative accomplishments have been significant. From the American Rescue Plan to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the CHIPs and Science Act, the PACT Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and most recently the signing into law of the Federal Prison Oversight Act—Biden’s policies have unquestionably been far better for the everyday life and well-being of returning citizens and directly impacted people in this country.
While the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act has stalled in Congress, President Biden did sign an executive order “to promote safe and accountable policing, ban chokeholds, restrict no-knock entries by police, create a national police accountability database, and prohibit the transfer of military equipment to local police departments.”
But as a candidate, Biden promised to lower the national incarceration rate by “more than half.” Instead, the prison population has actually gone up—after years of decline, including under Trump.
With five months left to serve, President Biden now has an unprecedented opportunity to make good on some of his promises and add to his legacy as one of the most important and consequential presidents in U.S. history. The 70+ million Americans who have direct experience of the criminal legal system in this country will be watching and waiting, hoping for Biden to come through on a laundry list of demands, many of which he can do with the stroke of a pen.
Here’s what we’re calling on President Biden to do: Deschedule and decriminalize marijuana, instead of just rescheduling it. Abolish the federal death penalty. Eliminate all federal student loans. Direct federal agencies to use person-first language. Sign all of the 20,000+ clemency petitions sitting on his desk right now.
Finally, and these steps would certainly be more difficult but still worth doing: Fight for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Fight for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to protect democracy and the right to vote for all Americans. And do everything left in his power, with the time he has left in the Oval Office, to repeal and reverse the impact of the 1994 Crime Bill in order to heal the harms that have been caused by this legislation that he championed as a senator. It’s not too late to try and undo some of what has been done by his previous actions.
Mr. President, we are grateful for your 52 years of public service and for the leadership you have demonstrated in leading this nation over the past four years. We want you to finish strong! If you want your legacy on criminal justice reform to surpass and be far better than your predecessor, you have some work to do before January 20, 2025. This is what we, as citizens, need you to accomplish before you pass the torch to the next administration. May God grant you the courage and strength to do what needs to be done!
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A Simple Safety Net Could Keep People Like Me out of Prison
When those facing the most systemic barriers receive sufficient income support, then economic security, thriving, and freedom are the result.
Aug 13, 2024
I received a 60-year prison sentence for a murder I didn’t commit. After 25 years of fighting this injustice, I was exonerated.
I’ve learned some hard lessons about our criminal justice system. I’ve also learned how simple safety net policies—like a modest guaranteed base income or no-strings-attached child allowance—could have kept millions of struggling young people like me out of trouble.
I had a good childhood in Flint, Michigan, but we were poor and opportunities were few. My parents were loving and supportive, but engaged in illegal activities to make ends meet. It seemed normal to me, but I was in an environment that normalized abnormal things.
I eventually dropped out of high school, moved to Indianapolis, and started a family. But when I got laid off, I turned in desperation to the drug life, trying to do for my family what my parents did for me.
If I’d had a modest child allowance for my own children, I wouldn’t have had to rely on the most accessible path available to me, the drug business.
One fateful night, I heard gunshots near the building where I had my drug business. I didn’t think much of it—shots weren’t unusual in that neighborhood. I finished my business for the day, proud of the money I’d made, and went home to my family.
Later, I learned a young man had been shot—and I was arrested for the murder.
I’d been blamed by someone with a drug-related grudge against me. A bystander had identified a very different man with a different physical description, but the detective buried that evidence. Advocates uncovered this evidence 25 years later, and I was exonerated and released. I’d spent a hellish 11 of those 25 years in solitary confinement.
During my incarceration, I became a teacher and mentor. Now I’m an advocate for people returning to society after incarceration.
I see the systemic barriers they face. Returning citizens are prohibited from hundreds of jobs—from working in education, health, and government to even becoming a barber or Uber driver. They’re barred from public assistance, public housing, and student loans. They face discrimination in housing and employment. They often have significant physical and mental health issues they can’t afford to treat.
These are the very conditions that sometimes lead to offenses and recidivism. Numerous studies have found that when people are securely employed, housed, and allowed to receive an education and meet their health needs, they don’t re-offend.
These people have already been punished and served their time—sometimes for offenses they never committed, like me. We shouldn’t be punished again when reintegrating into our families and societies.
As part of my work, I volunteer with Michigan Liberation, a statewide organization looking to end the criminalization of Black families and communities of color. Recently, they joined a Guaranteed Income Now conference co-hosted by Community Change and the Economic Security Project.
Guaranteed income can take many forms. It can be an expansion of current tax credits like the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit. It can be a no-strings-attached Child Allowance or a monthly payment to qualifying people, families, unpaid caretakers, undocumented immigrants, and returning citizens—all of whom are currently ineligible for assistance.
In Flint, it looks like a new program that offers pregnant people and new parents a monthly check for the first year of the baby’s life.
If my parents had a guaranteed income floor, we wouldn’t have been in danger of falling through into hunger and homelessness. They would have had significantly better chances to pursue well-paying jobs to provide for my security—without relying on illegal activity.
If I’d had a modest child allowance for my own children, I wouldn’t have had to rely on the most accessible path available to me, the drug business. I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the site of that murder—and wouldn’t have lost decades of my life to a false accusation.
It’s worth it to support our families and communities, no matter where we live or what we look like. When those facing the most systemic barriers receive sufficient income support, then economic security, thriving, and freedom are the result.
And I can tell you, there’s nothing sweeter than freedom.
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Where Is the Mass Outrage Over Israel’s Abu Ghraib?
The silence of Western media and politicians in response to revelations of systematic abuses of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody amounts to complicity.
Aug 10, 2024
It’s been just over 20 years since CBS News published the sobering photographs that proved the U.S. Army was carrying out unspeakable crimes against Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
Rape. Degradation. Homicide. Torture, both psychological and physical. Sexual humiliation.
The revelations of U.S. barbarity were greeted with horror around the world and played a major role in turning opinion against the Iraq War.
In recent days, it has become all too clear that something comparable to Abu Ghraib—and very possibly worse—has been taking place in Israeli prisons since October 7 when the war on Gaza broke out.
Looking terrified as he spoke, he told us of his disbelief that “peaceful people with no power can be starved, tortured, and killed” in the 21st century, with no protection, legal representation, or international outrage.
This week, appalling leaked video footage captured Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee, just as a report from the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem highlighted the state’s policy of systematic prisoner abuse and torture since the start of the war.
The report, based on interviews with 55 Palestinians detained since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, is distressing to read. It provides evidence of degrading treatment, arbitrary beatings, and sleep deprivation, as well as the “repeated use of sexual violence, in varying degrees of severity.”
Fadi Baker, 25, recollects that Israeli forces “put cigarettes out in my mouth and on my body. They put clamps on my testicles that were attached to something heavy. It went on like that for a full day. My testicles swelled up and my left ear bled.”
He said interrogators asked him about Hamas leaders and people he didn’t know and then beat him. “Then they put me back in the freezing room with the loud disco music, and again left me there, naked, for two days.”
B’Tselem headlined its report: “Welcome to hell.”
Normalizing Rape
While Israeli authorities have denied such accounts, the analysis comes just days after nine soldiers were arrested in relation to the rape of a Palestinian prisoner at the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility. The victim reportedly suffered a severe injury to his anus, a ruptured bowel, lung damage, and broken ribs.
In addition, last month the United Nations Human Rights office published a report that found shocking abuses in Israeli military facilities and prisons, where at least 53 Palestinians have died since October 7.
How have Western politicians remained silent on these horrors? Where is the mass public outrage?
This collective omerta from politicians and the media about Israel’s monstrous conduct is hard to comprehend, given that we are talking about systematic war crimes committed on a horrifying scale by a country already under investigation at the International Court of Justice for potential genocide.
It seems Israeli leaders have been successful in their campaign to normalize rape and other abuses against Palestinian prisoners. After the arrest of the nine soldiers at Sde Teiman, far-right protesters who stormed the facility were joined by several Knesset members. Justice Minister Yariv Levin said he was “shocked to see harsh pictures of soldiers being arrested,” adding that it was “impossible to accept.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir went even further: “I recommend the defence minister, the [Israeli army] chief and the military authorities to… learn from the prison service—light treatment of terrorists is over. Soldiers need to have our full support.”
Energy Minister Eli Cohen also came out in strong support of the “reservists who do holy work and guard the despicable Hamas terrorists,” adding, “We should all embrace them and salute them, certainly not interrogate them and humiliate them.”
The real goal of the arrests might simply have been to present the illusion that Israel is taking action internally against such horrors, in a bid to avoid international war crimes trials at The Hague. According to a recent report from Ynet, senior Israeli legal officials said: “It’s better that we investigate. Internal investigations save international external investigations.”
In a Haaretz article late last month, law professor Orit Kamir referenced legislation that was passed a year ago to allow for increased punishment in cases of Palestinians who sexually assault Jewish women. One year on, portions of the Israeli establishment “are no longer satisfied with doubling punishment… The state law amendment a year ago was only the trailer, when they were still hesitant and restrained,” she wrote.
“Now the sting is out of the bag, and they renounce the rule of law of the country altogether, and demand to apply the ancient law of revenge: an eye for an eye and rape for rape. Those who were arrested by the [Israeli army] as a suspect in connection with the 7 October atrocities were, according to their opinion, to be raped in custody by Jewish Israeli soldiers.”
Such abuses are becoming mainstream. There is ample evidence. Where is the broad global condemnation?
Western Complicity
The accounts cited by B’Tselem are consistent with many other reports that have filtered out from Israeli prisons over the last 10 months.
Four weeks ago, we interviewed Muazzaz Abayat in his hospital bed in Bethlehem after his release from jail, following nine months of administrative detention. Abayat, who had lost more than half his body weight in jail, told us that throughout his imprisonment, he was beaten, abused, tortured, starved, and deprived of water.
He said that his case was not exceptional—every other Palestinian prisoner faces the same treatment. His unimaginable suffering was sculpted in his face. Abayat compared the Negev prison where he had been held to the notorious U.S. facilities at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
These are the signs of a very sick society indeed—one that has passed through an invisible barrier into savagery. There are no red lines, no respect for international law, and no accountability.
He was never charged with any crime. Looking terrified as he spoke, he told us of his disbelief that “peaceful people with no power can be starved, tortured, and killed” in the 21st century, with no protection, legal representation, or international outrage.
There is still no international outcry. Incredibly, there has not even been comment. Despite the tsunami of evidence in recent days, there has been nothing from Western leaders. Nothing from U.S. President Joe Biden or his vice president, Kamala Harris. Silence from Keir Starmer, the British prime minister who threw his weight behind Israel’s policy of collective punishment in Gaza.
Nor have we heard from the former prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who had previously pledged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “unequivocal” support. The British media—with the honorable exception of The Guardian, which gave full coverage to the B’Tselem report—has been largely silent.
This collective omerta from politicians and the media about Israel’s monstrous conduct is hard to comprehend, given that we are talking about systematic war crimes committed on a horrifying scale by a country already under investigation at the International Court of Justice for potential genocide.
Their silence amounts to complicity. As for Israel, the majority of the political and media classes do not appear to think there is much wrong in the torture and abuse of prisoners, with some ministers actively defending the abusers.
During a recent televised debate, one of the panellists suggested it should be legal to use rape as a form of torture. In any other country, such vile comments would be major news.
These are the signs of a very sick society indeed—one that has passed through an invisible barrier into savagery. There are no red lines, no respect for international law, and no accountability. The silence of the West shows that we, too, have entered the same nightmare universe as Ben Gvir and Netanyahu.
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