5 things to know about Kamala Harris' criminal justice record

Chris duMond // Getty Images President Joe Biden, who announced the end to his re-election bid in a letter on X, has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him on the Democratic ticket. Now, Harris’ record on criminal justice — as a former prosecutor, senator and 2020 presidential candidate, as well as vice president — will face new scrutiny. In recent years, the country has witnessed protests following the murder of George Floyd, pandemic-related fluctuations in crime rates, as well as heated rhetoric over immigration and crime. Where does Harris stand on these and other criminal justice issues? The Marshall Project reports on five things to know: The Biden-Harris Administration has a mixed record on criminal justice reform. Over the last three and half years, the administration has promoted some criminal justice reforms — but its track record has come under criticism from advocates. Following two mass shootings — one at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and another at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York — Biden signed into law the Safer Communities Act in 2022. The legislation marked the first substantial package of gun safety laws in nearly 30 years, included a new law on gun trafficking, and expanded an existing law preventing people convicted of domestic abuse from owning a gun. But efforts on many issues that Biden campaigned on — like ending the federal death penalty and pledging to undo former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies — have not materialized. Harris’ early missteps on immigration could be used against her. One of Harris’ first assignments as vice president in 2021 was a diplomatic role at the U.S. Southern border, but the rollout was fairly disorganized. News headlines described Harris as the “point person on immigration” — but the vice president doesn’t oversee the border; the U.S. Department of Homeland Security does. This, combined with verbal slip-ups in press interviews, including a viral clip from a speech in Guatemala — in which she told people who were considering making the “dangerous trek” to the U.S.: “Do not come. Do not come.” — bruised her image. In June, Biden announced an executive order to bar migrants who unlawfully cross the southern border from seeking asylum. The order is conditional and goes into effect when crossings “exceed our ability to deliver timely consequences,” according to an announcement from The White House. Advocates have decried the move, saying it raises the bar for asylum seekers. Republicans have seized on Harris’ earlier flubs on immigration and for years have referred to her as the “border czar” — a jab that also came up again during the Republican National Convention. During the Republican convention, former presidential candidate Nikki Haley said: “Kamala had one job. One job. And that was to fix the border. Now imagine her in charge of the entire country.” Harris has billed herself as a “progressive prosecutor” — but her record is complicated. Before joining the U.S. Senate in 2017, Harris spent years as a prosecutor in California, including as the San Francisco District Attorney and the state attorney general. It’s difficult to fit her time in those roles into a clear box as a “reformer,” a “progressive” or as a “tough-on-crime” campaigner, in large part because those definitions have changed substantially since her prosecutorial career began decades ago. According to Jamilah King, writing for Mother Jones in 2018, “Harris has long tried to bridge the tricky divide between social progressivism and the work required as a prosecutor — sometimes more successfully than others.” One characteristic example: As San Francisco district attorney, Harris vowed not to seek the death penalty, but as California attorney general, her office argued it should stand. In her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” Harris observed, “America has a deep and dark history of people using the power of the prosecutor as an instrument of injustice.” But critics on the left have frequently criticized Harris over a record they say has fueled mass incarceration. In a first-of-its-kind town hall hosted by and for incarcerated people and their loved ones that same year, Harris touted her record as a prosecutor and district attorney. She singled out a small reentry program called “Back on Track,” for people charged with first-time, nonviolent offenses, like low-level drug sales. In 2020, Harris ran to the left of Biden on key issues regarding incarceration and policing. During the 2020 presidential primary, Harris worked to shed some of her tough-on-crime image and ran to the left of Biden on most criminal justice issues, including solitary confinement, federal mandatory minimum sentences and decriminalizing border crossings. Candidates Harris and Biden also split on clemency. It’s one of the few criminal justice realms where the president has the power to make sweeping unilateral changes by releasing people from federal prisons. Harris proposed creating a federal sentencing review unit that would consider early release for people who have served at least 10 years of sentences of 20 years or more. So far the Biden administration has been comparably restrained on clemency, approving a smaller share of petitions than any president in recent history. Harris also outflanked Biden on policing reform, saying she would support a national standard for police use of force, and proposing a new federal board with the power to review police shootings. The effort, popular with some policing think tanks, would function like National Transportation Safety Board reviews of airplane crashes. After nearly four years as vice president, some of Harris’ positions may have changed. The national criminal justice landscape has changed dramatically since Harris’ 2020 presidential bid and her time as a prosecutor in California. The murder of George Floyd, increased crime rates amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and record crossings at the southern border are just a few of the events that have reshaped the political landscape over the last five years. Those events have pushed some voters and politicians toward endorsing “tough on crime” policies, and have fueled ideological conflicts in a Democratic Party that — as recently as 2020 — largely backed reforms to a system they saw as overly punitive. That means it’s less obvious which approach Harris would take as the party’s standard-bearer. Harris has also spent the past year rehabbing her image following the missteps earlier in her term, with people in her close circle observing a more confident vice president. Harris has made more than 60 trips so far this year, speaking on issues related to race, abortion rights, and the war in Gaza. This story was produced by The Marshall Project and reviewed and distributed by Stacker Media.