But what about the topic of policing and police brutality?
Police brutality, which distinctly affects people of color in the US, is a public health crisis. As a district and attorney general, Kamala adopted several “tough on crime” strategies that have attracted criticism.
In 2015, she declined to back legislation that would have enforced specific requirements for local police departments that use body cameras, claiming that law enforcement leaders should use their discretion to figure out what technology they will use based on needs and resources.
Nevertheless, it was during her time serving as attorney general that the Department of Justice in California adopted the nation’s first statewide body cam initiative.
More than ten years ago, she also favored severe truancy laws that fined parents up to $2,000 if their kids missed too many school days without a valid reason. This policy was criticized for impacting communities of color at an excessive rate.
But recently, Harris expressed regret over enforcing the policy on a podcast and said it had “unintended consequences” of criminalizing parents.
And as anti-police-brutality and anti-racism protests swept the nation, Kamala Harris and other senators reacted by introducing a bill that would require federal officers to have dashboard and body cameras, prohibit choke holds, and prohibit no-knock warrants.
She said in a statement introducing the Justice in Policing Act of 2020:
“America’s sidewalks are stained with Black blood. In the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s murders, we must ask ourselves: How many more times must our families and our communities be put through the trauma of an unarmed Black man or woman’s killing at the hands of the very police who are sworn to protect and serve them?”
She continued to say that she understood that real public safety required police accountability and community trust and that she was proud to introduce this historic legislation to get our country on a path forward.
