Warren highlights criminal justice plan in Minneapolis
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrapped up a Minnesota campaign swing Tuesday by talking about criminal justice reform at an event in Minneapolis.
Warren is proposing a long list of changes including lower incarceration rates, marijuana legalization and the decriminalization of truancy in schools. She also wants to address racial disparities in incarceration, adjust sentencing guidelines and improve policing practices.
Warren held a roundtable discussion on the plan at Better Futures Minnesota, a nonprofit organization that helps men get their lives on track after incarceration.
Warren said there is a crisis in the criminal justice system.
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“We have a system that is not working. It is not serving the people who are in it. It is not serving their families. It is not serving their communities, she said at the event. “It’s not serving the whole country.”
Warren said she wants to spend less to lock people up and more to lift people up. She said she wants to raise criminal justice standards throughout the country.
“It isn’t just about Minneapolis. It isn’t just about Minnesota,” said Warren, “It’s about who we are as human beings. It’s about the country we’re going to build.”
The small issue-focused event came a day after a large campaign rally in St. Paul that drew several thousand people
"That crowd was not only big, that crowd was lively," she said.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders released a plan Sunday that among other things calls for banning private prisons and cash bail, banning solitary confinement and civil asset forfeiture, and conducting a federal investigation every time someone dies in police custody. The plan would also legalize marijuana and abolish the death penalty.
Sanders, who won the 2016 Minnesota DFL caucuses, is due to be in the Twin Cities on Saturday.