How Kamala Harris reformed California justice system

Reforms in the United States have substantially been orchestrated by a relentless conveyor belt of valiant black women. Harriet Tubman commenced the journey in 1863, when she took up arms and audaciously liberated, fed and sheltered over 300 runaway slaves. Her actions ultimately inspired President Abraham Lincoln's emancipation proclamation and abolition of slavery in April 1865.

Harriet motivated celebrated journalist Ida B. Wells, who imparted evidence of mass lynching of blacks and founded the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in 1909. The organisation continues to advocate the rights of black people.

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On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks' refusal to vacate her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama, led to her arrest and sparked an uprising and the termination of segregation in 13 southern states. Rosa's gallantry culminated in President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act in 1964, guaranteeing blacks the right to vote. Subsequently, black NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson computed the flight path that sent Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew to the moon and back for the first time in history on July 20, 1969.

Most recently, Patrisse Khan-Collors, Alicia Garza, and Nigerian Ayo Opal Tometi established the Black Lives Matter movement, which led to international awareness of the systemic culture of mass incarceration and police brutality. Further, Tarana Burke's Me-Too Movement provided an empowering platform that instilled abused women with the fortitude to reprimand the social establishment against the indignation of rape culture, misogynistic atrocities and femicide.

On November 5 this year, another decisive black woman Kamala Harris – the Vice President of the US – could rise to the pinnacle of American politics to become President. Kamala has vestiges of past black female heroines perched in her endearing persona. Her impassioned drive for community programmes has anchored the reform credentials that ventilated her offices when she was San Francisco's District Attorney, California Attorney General and California senator.

In the dawn of her electoral victory as District Attorney on January 8, 2004, she focused on a transformational programme she had envisioned. Kamala commenced the correction of misdemeanour offenders by providing them with redeeming opportunities to prevent repeat offences. Since completing law school, she was inundated by stories of numerous black citizens agitated by the criminal justice system.

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In one of the cases, 16-year-old Kalief Browder was arrested in New York City on charges of stealing a backpack. When his family couldn’t scrape together the $3,000 bail, he was detained on Rikers Island as he awaited trial. He ended up spending the next three years on remand, waiting in solitary confinement without being arraigned or convicted. His mental health deteriorated and he swiftly sank into depression. Soon after he was released, Kalief died by suicide.

Kamala understood that someone's bail shouldn’t be contingent on the amount of money in their possession or the colour of their skin. Black men pay 35 per cent higher bail than white men for the same charge. It’s a systemic racist, mass incarceration policy designed to keep black people in repression. The system keeps prisons, which are predominantly in rural white towns, operational by stacking them with blacks, creating employment for the Caucasian communities.

Between 2000 and 2014, 95 per cent of increments in the US jail population were individuals awaiting trial. This is a group of largely nonviolent defendants who haven’t been proved guilty, yet the exchequer was spending $38 million a day to imprison them while they anticipated their day in court.

Back on Track created opportunities by taking misdemeanour suspects through rigorous boot-camp rehabilitation. The programmes included job training, General Educational Development (GED) courses, community service, parental training, financial literacy classes, regular drug testing and psychological therapy. Its purpose was aligned to instil a sense of self-worth in suspects and prohibit the dehumanisation of black communities while investing in diverse solutions to handling criminality and protecting the most vulnerable in society.

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A year after Kamala launched Back on Track, each of the participants had, at a minimum, earned a GED certificate and landed a steady occupation, after the reciprocity of completing over 200 hours of community service. The fathers among them had cleared their outstanding child support payments and were rehabilitating from substance addiction. In addition to the diploma they received from Back on Track, the graduates had their criminal records expunged by a stand-by judge, to thwart any hindrance of re-entry into the job market.

According to Kamala's compelling legal memoir, Smart on Crime: A career prosecutor’s plan to make us safer, Back on Track quickly proved its merit. After two years, only 10 per cent of graduates had reoffended, as compared to 50 per cent for others convicted of similar crimes. This represented effective stewardship of taxpayer dollars by a compassionate leader.

The programme cost the taxpayer $5,000 per participant. Comparatively, it costs $10,000 to prosecute a felony case and another $40,000 or more to house someone for a year in the county jail. However, as a local official, Kamala had no capacity to turn Back on Track into a national policy.

When she successfully contested the Attorney General seat in California, she took the programme state-wide. Working in partnership with the LA County Sheriff’s Department, she created Back on Track–Los Angeles, then the largest county jail system in California. In 2017, while she was the senator from California, Kamala invoked a bill to encourage states to replace their bail systems. 

Read: There are still hurdles to justice, but system has come a long way

The bill led to 33 states adopting new sentencing policies aimed at promoting alternative correctional methods and reducing recidivism. Due to Kamala's exertion, 23 US states have further reduced their prison populations since 2010. Kamala continues to ensure punishments are proportionate to their offences and once she ascends to the presidency, Back on Track could rise to federal level.

The writer is a novelist, Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative and founder of Jeff's Fitness Centre (@jeffbigbrother).