When Kamala Harris published a book in 2009 recounting her experience as a California prosecutor, she called it “Smart on Crime.” That would signal a kinder, gentler approach, but that is not how Harris meant it. She meant, the book’s marketing copy proclaimed, “making the criminal justice system truly — not just rhetorically — tough.”
When she ran for president in 2019, Harris was no longer talking tough. She called herself a progressive prosecutor and proposed to end the death penalty, mandatory minimum sentences and cash bail. Progressives said her record was “just slightly less awful” than that of traditional prosecutors who measured their success by their conviction rates. The Democratic left wing helped push her out of the race.
Now she is back to being a Top Cop. Harris’s central pitch to voters has been her record as a prosecutor who has put away “predators, fraudsters and cheaters,” and could therefore handle her opponent in the presidential race. “So hear me when I say,” she tells crowds in her stump speech, “I know Donald Trump’s type.” It’s a refrain that voters are sure to hear repeated at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, says the New York Times.
Harris’s repositioning could be read as opportunistic flip-flopping or, more charitably, as one person’s evolution. Her move from tough to progressive closely tracked society’s changing views on crime and criminal justice, as it became clear that the war on drugs had failed to end the drug trade and ever-tougher sentences had left the U.S. with the world’s highest incarceration rate.
Events of the last four years have scrambled the picture. The killing of George Floyd by police officers in May 2020 touched off global protests against police brutality and racism and filled screens with images of Molotov cocktails and burning police precincts.
Harris is embracing her identity as a prosecutor in a way that would have been unimaginable four years ago.
Given her track record as a gauge of public opinion, should we see the new Kamala Harris as a sign that Americans are fully returning to the politics of “tough on crime”?
For all the billions of dollars invested in the justice system, it had a poor track record of making society safer. More than a third of prisoners are back behind bars within three years of release. Putting people in jail made them more likely to commit crimes in the future — not less.
There is a growing body of evidence that alternatives like drug treatment instead of jail for people with addictions were better, more efficient and more humane ways to alleviate crime.
Even Republicans appear confused by Harris’s repositioning. Her opponents are simultaneously attacking her from the right for being “soft as Charmin” on crime, and from the left for having used her power to lock up Black men for smoking pot.
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