Issue Position: Criminal Justice Reform

Issue Position

The racism and over-policing in our country are deep and predate George Floyd's murder by centuries. Here are three things to fix our problems. First, move public investments off of policing and onto programs that provide opportunity in education, healthcare and jobs for everyone. Second, stop militarizing and federalizing what should be local community policing. And third, investigate and prosecute cops who commit crimes with independence, transparency and consequence.

Texas spends roughly $6B on law enforcement and corrections annually. This is an investment in problems rather than an investment in solutions. Violent crimes have steadily declined since the early 1990s. But drug related cases have steadily increased over the same time period. And the demographic most often arrested in drug cases are black and brown people even though there is scant evidence that white people suffer addiction at lesser rates. In fact, statistics from the Travis County Medical Examiner's Office infer that white men have a higher rate of deadly drug or alcohol use than any other demographic.

We should reserve investment in policing to true public safety threats like murder, rape and armed robbery and move our investments in the treatment of mental illness, alcohol and drug addiction out of criminal justice and into healthcare. The return on this investment would not only be cost savings in policing, prosecution and incarceration. We would also be healthier people better able to learn, earn and care for our neighbors.

Second, over recent decades we have seen an unprecedented militarization and federalization of what should be local community police agencies. Federal grants of military type equipment are meted out to constables and even school police. If an incident occurs near IH-35 and MLK Blvd, more than 10 local and state law enforcement agencies have the authority and equipment to respond.

Local law enforcement should be about community engagement, police who are from here working with a community they know well and who know them well. Federalization alienates police from the community they serve.

The State's SB4 and the Federal 287(g) program deputize state and local law enforcement to perform the functions of federal immigration agents. And the DEA has also frequently deputized state and local law enforcement to perform investigations into interstate drug commerce.

It was under a temporary assignment for the DEA that put Officer Charles Kleinert beyond our community's ability to hold him accountable for fatally shooting Larry Jackson, an unarmed black man, in the neck. The Travis County District Attorney indicted Kleinert for manslaughter. But his temporary affiliation with the DEA gave him federal immunity. The Travis County Commissioners Court hired the best and brightest to challenge the Federal Immunity defense all the way to the US Supreme Court. The State of Texas did not join us. We lost.

As your State Senator I will continue to challenge the militarization of local law enforcement, the federalization of local officers and the Federal Immunity defense that protects cops who commit crimes against their own neighbors in violation of our constitutional rights.

Third, it should be the law of this state that policing as a profession is held to high standards that are measured and for which individual officers and departments are held accountable in quality processes managerially, civilly and criminally. We should reform state Civil Service rules that allow officers to be reinstated even after they have been fired for failing to live up to professional standards.

The state should require civilian offices of police oversight with insight into internal disciplinary processes and reliable, aggregated and searchable data about investigated behaviors. Meaningful recommendations should not be driven by isolated incidents. Recommendations must spring from reliable data. And the effectiveness of the recommendations must be tested against reliable data.

The state should require investigation and prosecution of cops who commit crimes by people with independence who are free of conflicting relationships within law enforcement and have the information necessary to make a difference. We can't reasonably expect cops to fairly investigate other cops and we can't reasonably expect prosecutors who work with cops every day to fairly prosecute them. Investigations and prosecution should be appropriately transparent so that the public can observe a quality civil or criminal process. And the consequences of these processes should be shared with civilian offices of police oversight for continual departmental improvement.

These three areas -- moving investment in policing to investment in healthcare, demilitarizing and de-federalizing the police, and holding officers accountable -- are not all that needs to be done. I also stand squarely in favor of the "8 Can't Wait" list of protocols for the reduction of police brutality, increased use of Site and Release for non-violent offenses, Cashless Bail, and decriminalization of marijuana, to name a few. I have been doing this work for a long time. There is much more work still to be done. And I am ready to do it as your State Senator.

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