Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Sanders Unveils Plan to “Fundamentally Transform” Criminal Legal System
Jake Johnson
21 Aug 2019
🖨️ Print Article
Sanders Unveils Plan to “Fundamentally Transform” Criminal Legal System
Sanders Unveils Plan to “Fundamentally Transform” Criminal Legal System

The presidential candidate calls for people to “stand together” to end the war on drugs and cut the prison population in half.

“Sanders vows to ‘rebuild the communities that mass incarceration continues to decimate.’"

Decrying America's status as the "world's leading jailer," Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday released a comprehensive plan to confront the crisis of mass incarceration, end the criminalization of poverty, and dramatically overhaul the U.S. criminal justice system.

"We have a criminal justice system that is racist and broken, and working together we're going to fundamentally transform it," said Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

The platform, which Sanders unveiled at an event in Columbia, South Carolina on Sunday, condemns America's "overly-punitive approach to public safety" and urges investments "to rebuild the communities that mass incarceration continues to decimate."

"We have over two million people in jail and prison, more than any other nation on earth, and they are disproportionately African-American, Latino, and Native American," Sanders wrote in an email to supporters on Sunday. "We spend $80 billion a year keeping people behind bars, money which could be used for education, job creation, and affordable housing."

To remedy this dysfunctional and devastating system, Sanders' platform—detailed on his website—calls for:

* A ban on private prisons as part of a broader effort to "end profiteering in our criminal justice system";

* An end to cash bail, which traps poor Americans in a cycle of debt;

* Halting excessive sentencing "with the goal of cutting the incarcerated population in half";

* Transformation of policing by ensuring oversight and accountability for law enforcement, banning use of facial recognition software by law enforcement, and ending "programs that provide military equipment to local police";

* Abolishing the death penalty;

* Legalization of marijuana and erasure of past marijuana convictions; and

* An end to the criminalization of addiction by funding adequate treatment for those addicted to opioids.

"If we stand together, we can eliminate private prisons and detention centers. No more profiteering from locking people up," Sanders said during his speech in South Carolina.

"If we stand together we can end the disastrous 'war on drugs,'" the senator added. "If we stand together we can end cash bail. No more keeping people in jail because they're too poor. If we stand together we can enact real police department reform and prosecute police brutality. If we stand together, there is nothing, nothing, nothing that we cannot accomplish."

Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Follow him on Twitter: @johnsonjakep

This article previously appeared in Common Dreams.

Mass Black Incarceration

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Reuven Blau
Blacks and Hispanics Seeking Parole Face Widening Racial Disparity, Report Finds
20 November 2024
After a damning revelation eight years ago, state leaders changed the make-up of the Parole Board to combat inequality.
ESSAY: Women in Prison: How We Are, Assata Shakur, 1978
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Women in Prison: How We Are, Assata Shakur, 1978
10 August 2022
Assata Shakur exposes the conditions faced by incarcerated Black women in a powerful 1978 essay.
The US Political Elite Gives Cover to the Brutal US Police State
Netfa Freeman
The US Political Elite Gives Cover to the Brutal US Police State
09 February 2022
The US political elite and their elite press are using the fraudulent claims about a “crime wave” as an ideological offensive, a backlash, agai
Organizers Are Calling on Congress to Close Loophole That Enables Prison Slavery
Tamar Sarai Davis
Organizers Are Calling on Congress to Close Loophole That Enables Prison Slavery
08 July 2021
The ‘slavery clause’ made the passage of restrictions targeting Black people like the Black Codes possible as well as convict leasing of
Lost Opportunity, Lost Lives
 Lisa Armstrong
Lost Opportunity, Lost Lives
01 July 2021
Prison officials could have prevented sickness and death by releasing those who were most vulnerable to coronavirus and least likely to reoffend —
To End Racial Capitalism, We Will Need to Take On the Institution of Policing
Henry A. Giroux
To End Racial Capitalism, We Will Need to Take On the Institution of Policing
23 June 2021
The same activists who are working to defund the police are also part of a collective movement to bring an end to neoliberal capitalism.
Hacked Emails Give Unfiltered View Into the DC Police Gang Database
Chris Gelardi
Hacked Emails Give Unfiltered View Into the DC Police Gang Database
23 June 2021
“Police can call you a gang member because they observed you with other gang members, who they declared gang members because they were with other g
Jail Populations Back Up After COVID-19
Weihua Li, Beth Schwartzapfel, Michael R. Sisak and Camille Fassett
Jail Populations Back Up After COVID-19
09 June 2021
Judges, prosecutors and sheriffs in many states sent people home instead of to jail last year, but new data suggests the change is not lasting.
How Corporations Buy—and Sell—Food Made With Prison Labor
H. Claire Brown 
How Corporations Buy—and Sell—Food Made With Prison Labor
02 June 2021
The small world of prison food production is a microcosm of the American food system, which all too o#en functions as a race to the bottom.
The US’s Biggest County Jails Are Sites of Extreme Environmental Injustice
Adam Mahoney
The US’s Biggest County Jails Are Sites of Extreme Environmental Injustice
06 May 2021
After first being forced to live in chemically toxic communities, Black and Brown people are then incarcerated in jails where they cannot escape so

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio October 3, 2025
    03 Oct 2025
    In this week’s segment, we discuss a lawsuit on behalf of the Shabazz family, seeking information on law enforcement coverups and possible involvement in the assassination of Malcolm X. But first, we…
  • Protests
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    UK Politics: Immigration, Racism, and Economic Crisis
    03 Oct 2025
    Roger McKenzie is the international editor of the UK-based Morning Star, the only English-language socialist daily newspaper in the world. He joins us from Oxford to discuss the politics of a growing…
  • Ilyasah Shabazz
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Shabazz Family Lawsuit Against the FBI and NYPD
    03 Oct 2025
    The investigation of the 1965 assassination of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Malcolm X, was compromised by the NYPD and the FBI from the very beginning by informants, coverups, false testimony, and the…
  • x
    Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Establishment of Colonial Military Governance Over Haiti by UN Security Council
    03 Oct 2025
    The United Nations has once again acted against the interests of the Haitian people in approving yet another military occupation under the guise of humanitarian action.
  • sovereign media launch
    Sovereign Media
    Anti-Imperialist Coalition Sovereign Media Launches Today
    01 Oct 2025
    Today, we launch Sovereign Media, an anti-imperialist coalition bringing together voices from the Global South and the Global North who refuse to bow to censorship or empire.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us