Congress’s Criminal Justice Reform Act boosts privatization, fails to dismantle mass incarceration, nor does it implement sentencing reform. We speak to Eddie Conway and Natasha Pratt Harris about the proposed reform
Criminal Justice reform, First Step Act, Mass Incarceration, US Congress, Trump & Crime, Eddie Conway, Natasha Pratt Harris, Marc Steiner
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Story Transcript
MARC STEINER: I’m Marc Steiner. I’m here with Eddie Conway, Executive Producer here at The Real News and host of Rattling the Bars, Dr. Natasha Pratt-Harris, Associate Professor and Criminal Justice Coordinator at Morgan State University, and Aajah Harris, who is SGA President at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore and a criminal justice major.
So let’s talk about what will happen if this bill passes. And it certainly looks like it will pass, as some conservative amendments will even push further back to making it not as important. But press-wise, in terms of the view of the American people seeing this, it can have a huge effect politically because it looks as if real reform is happening when it’s not. So what do you think that will mean? Because I’m curious, very quickly with three different perspectives. Natasha, let’s start with you. And I’m curious with your generation, Aajah, what you think this will mean in terms of the political battle for your generation. And then will close out with Eddie. Natasha?
NATASHA PRATT-HARRIS: Well, in less than twenty-four months we’ll be voting for the president again, the general election.
MARC STEINER: Good lord.
NATASHA PRATT-HARRIS: And quite frankly, the media will plug this as a hot topic and acknowledge that there’s been some reform if this actually passes. And you’ll probably get some people who are going to go on the Trump side saying wow, he actually did something, and while we have these issues, criminal justice reform is one of my things. Obama wasn’t able to do X, Y, or Z, but that’s partly because we aren’t necessarily well versed, again, in what criminal justice reform looks like really and/or what may have happened in previous administrations because it was not necessarily popular. When Obama visited the prisons, when he eliminated solitary confinement for juveniles, when he brought back the Pell Grant as a temporary stay to see about people getting an education while incarcerated, those things weren’t played up. Obama’s presidency in particular wasn’t necessary a criminal justice reform presidency. Trump may very well look like that if this particular bill passes.
MARC STEINER: And one of the things that they’re not mentioning here that I think Senators Booker and Harris said, along with Holder, is that this didn’t have to even be a bill. Most of the things in this bill could have been an executive order. This is just a show, it’s a game. How do think it will affect, politically, your generation?
AAJAH HARRIS: I think that it would open up a whole new can of worms when it comes to federal versus state laws, because it doesn’t affect the state laws. It will not positively affect the crimes that are happening more in an abundance, like the more people crimes. The federal crimes are more committed by those who have money and then the state crimes are committed by a lot of people who don’t have money, crimes of necessity, like you need to do this in order to feed your families, that thing. So it’s going to open up a whole new can of worms for the state government to have to now have a bill or executive order, something of that sort, to make it seem like they’re also falling in line with what Donald Trump is doing in terms of having a foot in on criminal justice reform, but it’s really not criminal justice reform.
MARC STEINER: Eddie Conway.
EDDIE CONWAY: Yeah. And I think what will change after this is over is it’ll be good PR press, as it’s been stated already, for Trump and the Republicans, the Koch brothers. But what’s really important, it’s going to privatize the incarcerational state. It’s going to privatize the amount of agencies that’s incarcerating people out beyond the prison walls. And so, even though it looks like the population of prisons are going down, in fact, the population of prisoners will be increasing. And it will be private money that will be spent and families will be paying for their loved ones to be on electronic monitoring or tested and so on. And so, they’re privatizing prisons and they’re expanding them into poor and Black communities.
MARC STEINER: I think that will be, to me, the real trick politically, to explain to the American people what’s really happening here when you have this brave new world of incarceration that doesn’t look like incarceration, it doesn’t appear like incarceration. And actually, in some ways, that might be something that American people, in their paranoia about all this, could actually relate to, how Big Brother is kind of taking over everything, including what’s happening to poor people in this country with incarceration. I mean, this has political potential on both sides for the looming battle ahead with this half step, no step bill.
NATASHA PRATT-HARRIS: Fake step.
EDDIE CONWAY: The jail next door.
MARC STEINER: Well, this is always great. Eddie Conway, I really appreciate all the work you do here at Real News and bringing these things to our attention. Dr. Natasha Pratt-Harris has been a guest of mine for years and it’s great to have you here, thank you so much.
NATASHA PRATT-HARRIS: Thank you for having me.
MARC STEINER: And Aajah Harris, good luck as the incoming SGA President.
NATASHA PRATT-HARRIS: Current president.
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Rattling the Bars
Rattling the Bars puts the voices of the people most harmed by our system of mass incarceration at the center of our reporting on the fight to end it. The show was founded by the late Black Panther and political prisoner Marshall “Eddie” Conway, and is now hosted by Charles Hopkins, better known as Mansa Musa, who himself spent 48 years behind bars.
MARC STEINER: Current president at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. That’s right, we’re in the midst of winter break. What year is this?
NATASHA PRATT-HARRIS: Almost 2019.
MARC STEINER: It’s good to have you all here, this has been great. And I’m Marc Steiner here for The Real News. Thank you all for joining us, great to have you with us. Take care.
