One Year After Biden Proclaimed April ‘Second Chance Month,’ Have His Criminal Justice Reform Efforts Met Black Voters’ Expectations?

Forward of 2020’s presidential election, then-candidate Joe Biden campaigned “to strengthen and reform” the felony justice system. Amongst, maybe, probably the most publicized steps he’s taken to this point was his proclamation final yr, marking April 2023 as Second Likelihood Month — an try to offer previously incarcerated individuals a second likelihood.

“I imagine in redemption — however for lots of of 1000’s of Individuals launched from State and Federal prisons every year, or the almost 80 million who’ve an arrest or conviction file, it isn’t at all times straightforward to return by,” President Biden’s proclamation learn.

“Three-quarters of previously incarcerated individuals stay unemployed a yr after their launch — and joblessness is a prime predictor of recidivism,” the assertion additionally mentioned. “We’re not giving individuals an actual second likelihood.”

Widespread reform is especially crucial within the felony justice system to handle racial disparities. Knowledge present African-Individuals are incarcerated at 5 occasions the speed of white Individuals. So, it’s evident why, through the 2020 election season, Black voters anticipated elected officers to take proactive steps to reform the felony justice system and help de-carceration. 

Through the first two years of Biden’s presidency, his felony justice reform (and crime prevention) efforts included: investing in community-led initiatives to scale back gun violence, nominating extra Black and Latino individuals to be federal court docket judges, and appointing 37 U.S. attorneys, of whom 20 had been Black.  

Many Black activists and individuals who voted for Biden wished to see extra completed to satisfy his marketing campaign promise, so his administration’s help of Second Likelihood Month final yr signaled optimism for a lot of. 

Now that Second Likelihood Month 2024 is upon us, right here’s a glance again at what Biden’s initiative included, and what impression it’s had — or hasn’t had — within the yr since.

What’s Second Likelihood Month and what did the Biden administration do? 

Whereas the White Home introduced elevated consideration to Second Likelihood Month in 2023, it’s a motion that launched nationwide in 2017, led by the faith-based, nonprofit group Jail Fellowship (that yr, the initiative was acknowledged by the U.S. Senate). It seeks to “elevate consciousness, break down obstacles, and unlock second possibilities for the 1 in 3 people with a felony file in America.”

After the Biden administration’s proclamation of Second Likelihood Month, it adopted up later in April with the discharge of a multi-year Alternate options, Rehabilitation, and Reentry Strategic Plan. The plan is “to strengthen public security by lowering pointless felony justice system interactions so cops can concentrate on combating crime; supporting rehabilitation throughout incarceration; and facilitating profitable reentry,” the assertion learn.

Additionally included in Biden’s actions, he commuted the sentences of 31 Individuals who had been serving sentences for non-violent drug offences.

What’s been the sentiment since?

Whereas final April’s efforts had been lauded as a step in the proper route, the Biden administration has not moved towards making the marketing campaign pledge for a progressive felony justice system a actuality, Vincent M. Southerland, school director of the Heart on Race, Inequality, and the Regulation on the NYU College of Regulation, asserted to Atlanta Black Star.

Southerland famous that whereas the Biden administration has invested in psychological well being and group violence interventions, these have come by allocating extra funding for policing.

“Historical past makes clear that investments in regulation enforcement exacerbate the inequality of the felony justice system,” Southerland mentioned. “It brings extra individuals involved with cops. This, in flip, results in a rise within the variety of individuals arrested, prosecuted, convicted, sentenced, and incarcerated.”  

A 2015 report by the nonprofit The Sentencing Mission, “Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity In The Legal Justice System,” detailed 4 key options of the felony justice system that exacerbate the underlying inequality. One particularly discovered that felony justice insurance policies exacerbate socio-economic inequalities by imposing collateral penalties on these with felony information and by diverting public spending.

Almost a decade — and two presidencies later — the identical issues with the U.S. felony justice system persist.

“The sluggish tempo isn’t a surprise,” William J. Drummond, a professor at UC Berkeley College of Journalism and creator of “Jail Reality: The Story of the San Quentin Information,” mentioned to Atlanta Black Star. “Any coverage modifications must work their method via an unlimited forms. Racial bias permeates all of felony justice, in any respect ranges. Incarceration is a byproduct of inequities all through society.”

The nonprofit Jail Coverage Initiative, which produces analysis documenting the hurt of mass criminalization, racial discrimination in housing, sentencing, and policing, regularly explains why information present stark disproportionalities in justice involvement for African-American individuals.

“Race and racial inequality are options, not bugs, of the felony system,” Southerland added. “Govt motion can restrict the affect of race on the administration of felony regulation. However the numerous methods wherein the felony justice system operates in follow implies that nobody actor or arm of the federal government can get rid of the system’s racial harms.

“Sadly, partially due to that dynamic, the Biden administration’s insurance policies haven’t had an outsized impact on the deep racial disparities that plague the felony system.”  

Actually, the Division of Justice underneath the Biden administration has continued the dangerous practices of the previous, together with the pursuit of capital prosecutions, a place that counters a marketing campaign promise by then-candidate Biden to abolish the federal demise penalty. 

Southerland added that if there was one shiny spot, it’s Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland issuing a memorandum that, amongst different issues, supplied steerage for extra proportionate sentencing and inspired federal prosecutors to hunt options to incarceration.

“These are steps in the proper route. It stays to be seen how rigorously these coverage directives are applied.”

The politics of an election yr

In February 2024, the White Home mentioned the US was safer than earlier than as a result of an historic decline in crime. It attributed this to a three-part strategy in its assertion: “funding efficient, accountable policing; investing in intervention and prevention methods; and retaining particularly harmful weapons off our streets and out of harmful arms.” 

In response to current media stories, polls present former president Donald Trump is gaining reputation amongst Black voters for this yr’s presidential election. Trump claimed that the help was as a result of Black individuals “embraced” his mug shot, realizing what it’s wish to have felony circumstances in opposition to them like he’s experiencing.  

What extra seemingly represents the pursuits of Black voters in relation to felony justice reform this election season are represented in two current polls: round 75 % of Black voters imagine mass incarceration causes lots of the issues that result in unsafe communities; and so they need federal and state governments to behave on reforms within the felony justice system.