Equal Justice & Policing

This position calls for eliminating the death penalty in the United States, with the narrow exception for war crimes and crimes against humanity prosecuted through international tribunals. The death penalty is irreversible, has been applied in racially and economically discriminatory ways, and has resulted in the execution of innocent people.

Eliminate the death penalty except for war crimes and crimes against humanity adjudicated through international proce...

Eliminate the death penalty except for war crimes and crimes against humanity adjudicated through international processes

Source: DB entry JUS-CAP-001, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This policy prohibits police departments from carrying or using automatic weapons, weapons of war, grenades, explosives, and armored vehicles equipped with offensive weaponry. Civilian law enforcement does not need the weapons of a battlefield.

Ban police use of automatic weapons, weapons of war, explosives, grenades, and armored vehicles equipped with offensi...

Ban police use of automatic weapons, weapons of war, explosives, grenades, and armored vehicles equipped with offensive weapons

Source: DB entry JUS-MIL-001, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position applies demilitarization rules equally to federal law enforcement agencies — including the FBI — not just local police. Federal agencies are not exempt from rules against turning civilian policing into military operations.

Police militarization rules apply to federal agencies including the FBI and similar law enforcement bodies

Police militarization rules apply to federal agencies including the FBI and similar law enforcement bodies

Source: DB entry JUS-MIL-002, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position provides that when a law enforcement situation genuinely requires military capabilities, the National Guard — under appropriate civilian authorization — should be deployed rather than arming local police with military equipment. This preserves the distinction between civilian law enforcement and military force.

Where military capabilities are genuinely necessary for a law enforcement operation, the National Guard rather than l...

Where military capabilities are genuinely necessary for a law enforcement operation, the National Guard rather than local police should be deployed under appropriate authorization

Source: DB entry JUS-MIL-003, status: PROPOSED. Pending editorial review.

This policy requires Congress to establish a formal commission to study the history and lasting effects of slavery and government-sponsored racial discrimination, review existing reparations proposals, and deliver specific recommendations for redress. The United States has never formally reckoned with the ongoing economic and social consequences of slavery and segregation.

Statutory federal reparations study commission

Congress must establish by statute a federal commission to study the history and ongoing effects of slavery and state-sponsored racial discrimination, assess existing reparations programs and proposals across federal and state governments, recommend specific forms of redress, and deliver a full report to Congress within four years of enactment; the commission must include historians, economists, legal scholars, and representatives drawn from affected communities; its recommendations must receive a formal congressional hearing and vote within one year of delivery; and funding must be sufficient to conduct original research, hold public hearings in affected communities across the country, and consult international experts on reparations frameworks and precedents.

H.R. 40 — the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans — has been introduced in every Congress since 1989 and has never received a floor vote. The failure to formally address the ongoing wealth, health, incarceration, and educational gaps that are direct consequences of slavery, segregation, and state-sponsored discrimination is itself a policy choice — one that perpetuates structural inequality by treating past harms as settled and resolved when their effects remain active and measurable. A study commission is not itself a reparations payment; it is the minimum institutional recognition that the harm was real, that it continues to shape life outcomes, and that it warrants a formal governmental response. International precedent — including German reparations for the Holocaust and U.S. reparations to Japanese Americans interned during World War II — demonstrates that democratic governments can and must acknowledge and address state-sponsored group harm. The commission model follows the structure of similar truth, reconciliation, and redress processes in other democracies, beginning with acknowledgment as the prerequisite for repair.

This policy requires that whenever someone is added to a police gang database, they must receive written notice within 30 days explaining exactly why, and must have the right to formally challenge their designation. People should not be on a government list that affects their rights without being told about it or given a way to contest it.

Mandatory written notice and petition right for gang database designations

Any law enforcement agency maintaining a gang database must provide written notice to any person added to that database within 30 days of designation; the notice must specify in detail the factual basis for the designation; the designated person must have the right to petition for removal, and the agency must respond in writing within 60 days with a statement of reasons; failure to provide timely notice is grounds for automatic removal from the database; any person wrongfully designated without notice has a private right of action for damages and injunctive relief.

Gang databases in the United States operate almost entirely in secret. CalGang, the Chicago Criminal Street Gang Database, and similar state and local systems designate hundreds of thousands of people — disproportionately Black and Latino men and boys — without ever notifying the person designated, providing any opportunity to contest the designation, or disclosing the criteria used. People learn they are designated only when the database is used against them: in sentencing, immigration proceedings, housing denials, or employment rejections. Secret designation without notice or process is fundamentally incompatible with due process of law. The notice requirement, petition right, and private right of action create a minimum procedural floor while placing enforcement power directly with the people most harmed, rather than relying solely on administrative oversight that has historically been absent.

This policy prohibits using a gang database designation alone as the basis for arresting someone, prosecuting them, enhancing their sentence, detaining or deporting them, denying them housing, or taking other adverse action. A database entry is not evidence of a crime.

Gang designation alone may not be the sole basis for adverse legal action

Gang database designation alone may not serve as the sole basis for arrest, prosecution, sentencing enhancement, immigration detention or deportation, public housing denial, employment action, or any other adverse legal proceeding; any use of gang designation in a legal proceeding must be accompanied by independent, admissible evidence of specific criminal activity; prosecutors and agencies that seek adverse action based solely on gang designation bear the burden of producing independent corroborating evidence.

Gang designation has become a standalone tool for adverse action that operates outside normal evidentiary standards. Immigration courts use database entries to justify detention and deportation without any requirement that the government prove any criminal conduct. Housing authorities deny or terminate tenancy based on designation. Prosecutors invoke designation to seek enhanced sentences without introducing any evidence of the criminal activity that allegedly justifies it. This transforms a classification made by an officer — often based on nothing more than neighborhood, clothing, or association — into a legal finding with severe consequences, while bypassing the adversarial process through which such findings would normally be contested. The corroboration requirement restores evidentiary standards to proceedings that affect liberty and livelihood.

This policy requires annual civilian audits of gang databases with authority to order removals, automatic removal of entries with no criminal activity in five years, and a judicial warrant before any database records can be shared with immigration enforcement. Gang databases require oversight to prevent them from becoming tools for mass surveillance.

Annual civilian audit, 5-year purge, and judicial warrant required for ICE sharing

All gang databases maintained by law enforcement agencies must be audited annually by an independent civilian oversight body with authority to order removals and publish findings; entries for which no documented criminal activity has been recorded within 5 years must be removed automatically; no gang database records may be shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or any federal immigration enforcement agency without an individual judicial warrant supported by probable cause naming the specific person sought.

Gang databases accumulate errors and never shrink. Audits consistently find that databases contain deceased persons, people who were minors when designated, and people with no documented criminal activity. The Los Angeles County Inspector General found in 2016 that the CalGang database had 42 entries for people under 1 year of age, including 28 who had supposedly "self-admitted" gang membership. Without mandatory purge timelines and independent civilian oversight with actual removal authority, databases serve as permanent accusatory records that follow people indefinitely. The ICE warrant requirement addresses the documented use of local gang databases as immigration enforcement tools, which has a chilling effect on crime reporting by immigrant communities, undermines community policing relationships, and uses criminal justice systems for immigration purposes without judicial oversight.

This policy requires all gang designation criteria to be publicly disclosed, and prohibits designating someone as a gang member or associate based solely on what they wear, where they live, or who their family members are. These superficial criteria are racial profiling by another name.

Public disclosure of designation criteria; clothing, neighborhood, and family association prohibited as criteria

All criteria used by law enforcement agencies to designate a person as a gang member or associate must be publicly disclosed and subject to comment; wearing particular clothing, being present in a particular neighborhood, or having a family member previously designated may not constitute designation criteria; designation based solely or primarily on constitutionally protected speech, association, or expression is prohibited; agencies must post current criteria and annual audit summaries in a publicly accessible online database.

The opacity of gang designation criteria enables systems to operate as tools of racial targeting with no accountability. Studies of gang database designations have found that being Black or Latino in certain ZIP codes is effectively a sufficient criterion in practice, even where formal criteria list more neutral factors. Criteria that include clothing style, neighborhood presence, or family association sweep in tens of thousands of people with no individual basis for suspicion. The prohibition on these criteria is not merely procedural — it reflects the First and Fourteenth Amendment limits on government action that penalizes people for association, presence, and expression rather than conduct. Public disclosure enables community oversight, civil rights litigation, and legislative accountability that secret designation systems actively prevent.

This policy requires courts to calculate fines using a day-fine system that ties the size of the fine to the offender's daily income, so that the penalty has an equivalent economic impact regardless of wealth. A $500 fine means something very different to someone earning $30,000 per year than to someone earning $3 million.

Day-fine system: all discretionary fines calibrated to daily income

All civil and criminal fines assessed by courts must, for offenses where the court has sentencing discretion, be calculated using a day-fine system that multiplies the number of penalty units assigned to the offense by the defendant's verified daily net income; no flat fine above $50 may be imposed without a judicial income assessment; day-fine schedules must be published and applied consistently; the government bears the burden of assessing income, and inability to document income defaults to a rebuttable presumption of minimum-wage daily income.

Flat fines impose radically different real burdens on people at different income levels. A $200 fine is a minor inconvenience for a high-earner and an economic catastrophe for a minimum-wage worker — yet both receive identical nominal punishment for identical conduct. The day-fine system, used in Finland, Germany, Sweden, and other countries with lower recidivism rates, equalizes the actual burden of fines by anchoring the amount to a proportion of daily income. It preserves judicial discretion over the severity of the punishment (the number of penalty units) while eliminating the regressive impact of flat fines. The default to minimum-wage income where documentation is unavailable prevents the system from collapsing into a revenue-extraction tool for jurisdictions that have financial incentives to assess the maximum amount.

This policy establishes that inability to pay a fine is a complete legal defense against incarceration or probation revocation for nonpayment, and requires courts to hold an ability-to-pay hearing before detaining anyone for failing to pay. The maximum detention for civil contempt nonpayment is 30 days, with release required once it is clear payment is impossible.

Inability to pay is a complete defense to incarceration; mandatory ability-to-pay hearing before detention

Inability to pay a fine, fee, or court cost is a complete defense to incarceration, probation revocation, or other detention for non-payment; courts must conduct an ability-to-pay hearing before any person is detained for non-payment of any fine or fee; detention for non-payment is civil contempt and not criminal — the maximum detention period is 30 days and the right to counsel must be provided; any person detained in violation of these requirements has a private right of action for injunctive relief and damages.

The Supreme Court held in Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983), that incarcerating someone for failing to pay a fine they genuinely cannot pay violates the Equal Protection Clause. Yet decades after Bearden, courts across the country routinely imprison people for non-payment without conducting ability-to-pay hearings, without providing counsel, and without any finding of willful refusal to pay. This produces modern debtors' prisons in which poverty itself is criminalized. The mandatory hearing requirement, civil contempt framework, counsel requirement, and private right of action together create both procedural protection and enforcement mechanism — because historical experience shows that administrative mandates without private enforcement are routinely ignored where judges and prosecutors have financial or political interests in aggressive collection.

This policy requires automatic waiver or conversion to community service — at minimum wage equivalent — for any fine assessed against a person whose household income is below 200% of the federal poverty line. People in poverty should not face incarceration for fines they demonstrably cannot pay.

Automatic waiver or community service conversion for persons below 200% of federal poverty line

Any fine, fee, or court-imposed surcharge assessed against a person with household income below 200% of the federal poverty line must be automatically waived upon verified income documentation or converted, at the person's election, to community service at the minimum wage rate; waiver and conversion must require no additional hearings, petitions, or legal fees; the government must proactively assess income at sentencing and advise defendants of their eligibility; failure to conduct income assessment at sentencing does not bar a defendant from raising eligibility at any subsequent enforcement proceeding.

Court-imposed fines and fees have become a primary revenue source for jurisdictions across the country, and the people least able to pay bear the heaviest burden. Below 200% of the federal poverty line — approximately $60,000 annually for a family of four as of 2025 — people routinely face cascading consequences from unpayable fines: suspended licenses that prevent them from getting to work, arrest warrants that lead to detention, credit damage, and accumulating interest and penalties that turn a $200 fine into a $2,000 debt. Automatic waiver without petition removes the structural barrier that causes low-income defendants to default into the debt spiral; community service conversion preserves the punitive function for cases where that function is appropriate while not converting the fine into an uncollectible debt that harms only the defendant.

This policy prohibits suspending someone's driver's license solely because they failed to pay a fine unrelated to driving. It also requires an occupational license option that lets people drive to work and essential services, and waives all reinstatement fees for people below the poverty line.

Prohibit driver's license suspension for non-driving debt; occupational license option; waive reinstatement fees below poverty line

No driver's license may be suspended solely for failure to pay a fine or fee for an offense unrelated to the operation of a motor vehicle; suspension for driving-related offenses must include a mandatory occupational license option allowing the person to drive to and from work, medical appointments, and essential services; all license reinstatement fees must be waived for persons with household income below 200% of the federal poverty line; states must restore driving privileges to any person whose license was suspended solely for non-driving debt within 90 days of enactment.

License suspension for non-driving debt is a self-defeating poverty trap: it eliminates the transportation that most low-wage workers need to maintain employment, making payment less likely, not more. An estimated 7 million people have had their licenses suspended for failure to pay court-imposed fines and fees unrelated to any driving offense. The practice disproportionately affects Black and Latino residents in states that use aggressive license suspension as a collection tool. It does not increase fine payment — research consistently shows it primarily causes people to drive without licenses, creating additional criminal exposure, or to lose jobs, housing, and economic stability. The occupational license option and poverty-line reinstatement waiver together address both the enforcement failure and the human cost of a policy that functions as a structural obstacle to escaping poverty.

This policy abolishes fees charged to people in the justice system for their own public defender, probation supervision, electronic monitoring, drug testing, and incarceration cost-recovery. Charging people fees for services required of them by the court, while they are under the court's control, perpetuates debt that follows them out of the system.

Abolish court fees for public defenders, probation supervision, electronic monitoring, drug testing, and incarceration cost-recovery

Courts and corrections agencies may not impose fees for the provision of public defenders, probation supervision services, electronic monitoring equipment or services, mandatory drug testing, or incarceration cost-recovery on persons who are or were incarcerated or under supervision; any such fees currently assessed must be forgiven and expunged from credit records; governments may not profit from the administration of the criminal legal process; existing contracts with private vendors that require cost-recovery from defendants are void and may not be renewed.

The criminal legal system has been transformed into a revenue-generation machine that profits from the people most harmed by it. Public defender fees charge defendants for the constitutional right to counsel — a right that is hollow if exercising it creates additional financial liability. Probation supervision fees charge people for the privilege of not being incarcerated, converting supervision into an ongoing financial penalty that accumulates regardless of compliance. Electronic monitoring fees shift the cost of state surveillance onto the surveilled, who are paying to be imprisoned in their homes. Drug testing fees charge defendants for tests they are required to submit to. Cost-of-incarceration fees send people to prison for poverty and then demand payment for the imprisonment. These fees are regressive, counterproductive, and corrupt the incentive structures of the justice system: when courts and supervision agencies are funded by fees extracted from defendants, their financial interests are served by maximizing fees, imposing supervision, and extending its duration — the opposite of their public safety mandate.

This policy requires every prosecutor's office with 50 or more attorneys to establish an independent Conviction Integrity Unit — staffed by attorneys who do not report to the elected district attorney — with full authority to review credible claims of actual innocence regardless of procedural posture.

Independent Conviction Integrity Units in all large prosecutor's offices

Every prosecutor's office employing 50 or more full-time attorneys must establish a Conviction Integrity Unit staffed by attorneys who report to an independent oversight board and not to the elected district attorney; the unit must have the authority and obligation to review all credible claims of actual innocence regardless of the procedural posture of the case; the unit must publish annual reports on cases reviewed, findings, and outcomes; unit staff may not simultaneously work on prosecution of new cases; and the state must fund the units at a level sufficient to employ at least one attorney for every 100 attorneys in the office.

Conviction Integrity Units have exonerated hundreds of people since the first was established in Dallas County in 2007 — demonstrating that wrongful convictions are not rare aberrations but a predictable output of a system under pressure to produce convictions. The reporting-line independence from the elected DA is critical: units that report to the DA they are reviewing lack the structural independence to challenge the office's past decisions, particularly when those decisions involve misconduct by current supervisors. The publication requirement creates public accountability; the staffing ratio prevents units from becoming nominal programs that handle one or two cases per year while thousands of potential wrongful convictions go unreviewed. Without this structural requirement, whether any CIU exists and whether it has real power depends entirely on the priorities of whoever holds the elected DA position at any moment.

This policy guarantees every person convicted of a felony the absolute right to post-conviction DNA testing of biological evidence, at the state's expense, with no procedural default or missed deadline barring the request. The state must preserve all biological evidence until a conviction is truly final.

Absolute right to post-conviction DNA testing; state bears cost; no procedural default bars

Any person convicted of a felony has an absolute right to post-conviction DNA testing of any biological evidence in any case in which DNA testing was not conducted or could yield more probative results using current technology; the state must bear all costs of testing and must preserve all biological evidence until the conviction is final and all appeals are exhausted; no procedural default, waiver, deadline, or prior failure to request testing may bar a claim for post-conviction DNA testing; results must be disclosed to the defendant within 90 days of completion; testing results that are inconsistent with guilt entitle the defendant to a new trial.

Post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated over 375 people in the United States since 1989, including more than 20% who were on death row. The technology did not exist at the time of most of these convictions; procedural default rules that bar testing because the defendant "could have requested it earlier" punish people for failing to seek a remedy that was not available when the case was tried. Evidence preservation until finality is essential because biological evidence is frequently destroyed — accidentally or deliberately — before new testing can be requested. The 90-day disclosure requirement prevents indefinite delay that allows people to remain incarcerated while testing results demonstrating their innocence sit in a laboratory. No procedural rule premised on systemic efficiency can justify maintaining a conviction that DNA evidence demonstrates is false.

This policy requires all law enforcement to use scientifically validated lineup procedures — blind administration, sequential presentation, no feedback to witnesses, and full video recording — to prevent the eyewitness misidentification that is the leading cause of wrongful conviction.

Mandatory blind lineup administration; sequential procedures; no witness feedback; video recording required

All law enforcement agencies must use blind or double-blind lineup administration procedures in which the administrator does not know which person is the suspect; lineups must be conducted sequentially rather than simultaneously; no administrator or other person present may provide verbal or nonverbal feedback to a witness before, during, or after any identification procedure; all identification procedures must be video recorded in their entirety from the moment the witness enters the room; identification procedures conducted in violation of these requirements are inadmissible at trial; violations entitle defendants to dismissal of charges where the identification is the primary evidence of identity.

Eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the United States, contributing to approximately 69% of the more than 375 convictions overturned by DNA evidence since 1989. The scientific evidence on the malleability of eyewitness memory is unambiguous: unconscious cuing from lineup administrators who know who the suspect is, simultaneous presentation that invites relative comparison rather than individual recognition, and post-identification confirmation feedback all dramatically increase the rate of false identifications. These are structural problems with identification procedures that can be entirely eliminated by blind administration, sequential presentation, and a no-feedback rule — reforms that cost nothing and have been adopted by hundreds of jurisdictions without any reduction in accurate identification rates. Mandatory video recording provides the evidentiary record needed to enforce these requirements at trial and on appeal.

This policy prohibits using statements obtained from juveniles or people with intellectual disabilities during custodial questioning unless their attorney was present throughout the entire interrogation. All custodial interrogations must be fully video-recorded from the moment a person is brought into custody.

No custodial statements from juveniles or persons with intellectual disabilities without counsel; mandatory full recording

No statement obtained during custodial interrogation of a person under 18 years of age or a person with documented intellectual disability may be admitted in any criminal or juvenile proceeding unless defense counsel was present during the entire interrogation; all custodial interrogations must be video recorded in their entirety from the moment the person is brought into the interrogation space; recordings must be preserved in unedited form until the conviction is final and all appeals exhausted; any statement obtained in violation of these requirements is inadmissible and the prosecution may not use it for impeachment purposes; law enforcement agencies that suppress or edit recordings are subject to dismissal with prejudice and referral for criminal prosecution.

False confessions have contributed to approximately 29% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence. People under 18 and people with intellectual disabilities are dramatically overrepresented among false confessor cases due to heightened suggestibility, difficulty understanding Miranda rights, desire to please authority figures, and inability to appreciate long-term consequences of waiving rights. The counseled-interrogation requirement for these populations directly addresses the mechanism of false confession: coercive techniques that extract false admissions from vulnerable people under psychological pressure. Full recording of the entire interrogation — not merely the statement itself — is essential because courts cannot assess the voluntariness of a confession without seeing how it was obtained. The editing prohibition with dismissal remedy addresses the documented practice of erasing early portions of interrogations where coercive techniques are most visible.

This policy establishes civil liability for prosecutors who hide evidence that could help the defense, and removes absolute immunity for prosecutors who intentionally suppress required disclosures. State bar associations must investigate and impose discipline on any prosecutor who knowingly conceals exculpatory evidence.

Civil liability for Brady violations; no absolute immunity for intentional suppression; mandatory bar investigation

Brady violations that contribute to a wrongful conviction are subject to civil liability under federal statute; prosecutors who intentionally suppress exculpatory or impeachment evidence may not invoke absolute prosecutorial immunity as a defense; state bar associations must investigate and impose suspension or disbarment on any prosecutor who knowingly suppresses exculpatory evidence, regardless of whether a wrongful conviction resulted; any exoneration in which suppressed evidence is identified must trigger automatic referral to the state bar; federal funding for prosecutors' offices must be conditioned on the office maintaining and disclosing to the state bar a complete log of all Brady disclosures and all exonerations.

Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), established more than 60 years ago that the prosecution must disclose material exculpatory evidence to the defense. Yet suppression of exculpatory evidence remains the most common form of prosecutorial misconduct identified in wrongful conviction cases. The accountability gap is structural: absolute immunity shields prosecutors from civil suits even for knowing suppression; bar discipline is vanishingly rare for Brady violations; and the only remedy available to defendants is a new trial — after they have already served years or decades for a crime they did not commit. Civil liability for intentional suppression, combined with mandatory bar investigation on every exoneration involving suppressed evidence, creates a real accountability system for the first time. The Brady disclosure log prevents prosecutors from claiming inadvertent violation in cases where documentation would establish the intentional nature of the suppression.

This policy requires that every exonerated person receive $100,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment (minimum $500,000), paid within 12 months of exoneration, plus automatic expungement of all related records within 30 days, health insurance, and reentry support services. Exonerees must be compensated fully and promptly for the years taken from them.

Exoneree compensation: $100,000 per year of incarceration; automatic expungement; health insurance and reentry services

Any person exonerated after wrongful conviction must receive compensation of $100,000 for each year of incarceration with a minimum payment of $500,000 regardless of time served; compensation must be paid within 12 months of exoneration; automatic expungement of all records related to the wrongful conviction must be executed within 30 days; the state must provide health insurance coverage for 10 years following exoneration; the state must provide comprehensive reentry services including housing assistance, job placement, mental health counseling, and legal services for 5 years; compensation may not be conditioned on waiving civil rights claims.

Exonerees in the United States frequently receive nothing upon release after spending years or decades wrongfully incarcerated. As of 2023, only 36 states had any compensation statute, most with compensation caps far below $100,000 per year, most requiring claimants to prove actual innocence by clear and convincing evidence, most conditioning compensation on waiving civil rights claims, and most providing no health care, housing, or reentry support. Exonerees leave prison with no employment history for the period of incarceration, no health insurance, often with destroyed family relationships, untreated trauma, and no savings — into a labor market and housing market that runs background checks that still show the wrongful conviction. The $100,000 per year figure approximates the actual economic loss from incarceration, and the non-waiver provision preserves the ability to pursue civil rights claims against the officers, prosecutors, or agencies responsible for the wrongful conviction. Health insurance and reentry services address the documented needs of exonerees, who experience dramatically elevated rates of PTSD, major depression, substance abuse, and housing instability compared to the general population.

This policy prohibits law enforcement from manufacturing or inducing crimes — setting up sting operations that would not have resulted in any crime without law enforcement's instigation. The entrapment defense is strengthened to an objective standard: whether a normally law-abiding person would have committed the crime given the same government pressure.

Prohibit manufactured crime; expand entrapment defense to objective standard

Undercover law enforcement operations may not induce, solicit, create the opportunity for, or facilitate the commission of a crime that would not have occurred but for law enforcement initiative; the entrapment defense must be expanded in all federal and state courts to include an objective standard: whether a normally law-abiding person with the defendant's characteristics and circumstances would have been induced to commit the offense by the government's conduct; entrapment established under the objective standard is a complete defense regardless of the defendant's predisposition; prosecutorial authorization must be obtained before any undercover operation that involves government facilitation of criminal activity.

The current subjective entrapment standard — which asks whether this particular defendant was predisposed to commit the crime — renders the defense almost useless because the government can always introduce prior criminal history to establish predisposition. It allows law enforcement to manufacture crimes, recruit vulnerable people into criminal activity, and then argue that their previous struggles with crime or substance use mean they "would have done it anyway." The objective test, used in the Model Penal Code and adopted by several states, asks whether the government's conduct would have induced a normally law-abiding person — a standard that focuses on police conduct rather than defendant character, and that reflects the actual constitutional concern: that government should not be in the business of creating criminals. The prosecutorial authorization requirement ensures accountability for operations involving facilitation of criminal activity before anyone is arrested, not after.

This policy prohibits sting operations that are targeted based on a person's race, religion, national origin, political affiliation, or constitutionally protected speech or religious practice. Government-manufactured crime cannot be used as a tool to target disfavored communities or political groups.

Prohibit sting operations based on protected characteristics or constitutionally protected speech

Sting operations and undercover investigations may not be initiated based solely or primarily on a person's race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, political affiliation, or sexual orientation; targeting based on the exercise of constitutionally protected speech, association, or religious practice is prohibited; any defendant in a sting prosecution may demand production of the targeting justification, and the government must demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the operation was not initiated based on protected characteristics; failure to produce justification or a finding of targeting based on protected characteristics results in dismissal with prejudice and a private right of action for the targeted individuals.

The FBI's post-9/11 sting operations against Muslim communities — which targeted mosques, community centers, and individuals based on religious identity and political views rather than specific criminal intelligence — are the most documented example of a broader pattern: sting operations disproportionately targeting communities of color, immigrant communities, and political dissidents. The ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and multiple federal court findings have documented operations in which informants were paid to cultivate relationships with targets for months or years before suggesting criminal activity, with targeting decisions rooted in religious and ethnic profiling. The clear-and-convincing production requirement and dismissal remedy shift the burden to the government to demonstrate lawful targeting — the inverse of current practice, in which defendants must prove discrimination they have no access to document. The private right of action creates accountability for targeted community members beyond the individual defendant.

This policy prohibits law enforcement from setting quotas for the number of arrests, seizures, or criminal referrals generated from undercover operations, and protects officers who report quota pressure from retaliation. Quotas in sting operations create pressure to manufacture crime rather than prevent it.

Prohibit quotas for sting arrests, citations, or seizures; whistleblower protection for officers reporting quota pressure

Law enforcement agencies may not establish, impose, or use quotas for the number of arrests, citations, asset seizures, or criminal referrals generated from sting or undercover operations; performance evaluations for officers and units engaged in undercover work may not be based on the quantity of arrests, charges, or convictions produced; any officer who reports quota-based pressure or performance evaluation to a supervisor, inspector general, civilian oversight body, or legislative body is protected from retaliation under federal whistleblower law; officers who experience retaliation for reporting quota pressure have a private right of action for damages, reinstatement, and attorney's fees.

Arrest and citation quotas corrupt the incentive structure of law enforcement by aligning officer advancement and unit funding with the production of arrests rather than with public safety outcomes. In the context of undercover operations, quotas create direct pressure to manufacture criminal activity — to escalate sting operations, recruit more targets, and find creative ways to meet numerical targets regardless of whether the targets represent genuine public safety threats. The quota system documented in multiple cities and police departments (including the NYPD scandal that produced the book and film The Seven Five) generates manufactured crime, particularly in communities of color where undercover operations are concentrated. Whistleblower protection with a private right of action is essential because officers who report quotas face severe retaliation from supervisors and peer culture; administrative complaint processes are inadequate without an independent enforcement mechanism that places the officer in control of their own remedy.

This policy requires that defendants in any prosecution involving undercover agents or paid informants receive full disclosure — at least 90 days before trial — of every detail of government involvement, including informant payments and instructions. People have the right to know when the government played a central role in the crime they are accused of.

Full pre-trial disclosure of all government involvement in charged conduct, including informant payments and instructions

Defendants in any prosecution in which government agents or paid informants participated in the charged conduct must receive, no later than 90 days before trial, full disclosure of all government involvement including: the identity of all informants involved in the charged conduct; all payments, promises of payment, reduced charges, or other benefits provided to informants; all instructions provided to informants by law enforcement; all communications between informants and law enforcement about the target; and the full history of any informant's prior cooperation and prior criminal conduct; failure to make timely and complete disclosure is grounds for automatic dismissal with prejudice; prosecutors who make false or incomplete disclosure certifications are subject to civil liability and bar referral.

Informants are the most unreliable category of witnesses in the American justice system — they have a direct financial and legal interest in producing arrests and convictions, which creates irresistible incentives to fabricate, exaggerate, and entrap. The National Registry of Exonerations has identified informant testimony as a contributing factor in approximately 15% of all wrongful convictions. Yet defendants routinely have no access to information about what informants were paid, what they were instructed to do, how many other cases they worked, or what benefits they received in exchange for their testimony. Without this information, cross-examination is impossible and the reliability of informant evidence cannot be assessed. The automatic dismissal remedy for non-disclosure is essential because experience across the federal and state systems demonstrates that less severe remedies — adverse instructions, continuances — do not provide adequate deterrence for prosecutors who have strategic interests in withholding damaging disclosure.

This policy proposes amending the 13th Amendment to remove the exception that currently permits involuntary servitude as punishment for crime, and in the meantime requires all incarcerated workers to be paid at least the federal minimum wage. Incarceration should not mean a return to forced unpaid labor.

Abolition of Involuntary Servitude Exception for Incarcerated Persons

Congress must pass a constitutional amendment and interim statutory remedy abolishing the 13th Amendment's exception that permits involuntary servitude "as a punishment for crime." All incarcerated persons performing labor must receive compensation at no less than the applicable minimum wage, minus a reasonable deduction not to exceed 30% for room and board. Incarcerated workers may not be subjected to disciplinary punishment, segregation, or loss of good-time credits for refusing a work assignment; all labor must be genuinely voluntary.

Federal and state prisoners earn between $0.14 and $1.41/hour on average , while some states pay nothing at all. The 13th Amendment exception has been used to justify prison labor that generates billions in economic value with no worker protection.

This policy requires full OSHA workplace safety protections and workers' compensation coverage for incarcerated workers, on the same terms as civilian workers. Being in prison does not eliminate the right to a safe workplace or compensation for a job-related injury.

Incarcerated Workers Have Full Occupational Safety and Labor Rights

OSHA standards apply fully to all workplaces where incarcerated persons perform labor; prison labor worksites must be inspected on the same schedule as comparable civilian worksites. Incarcerated workers must receive workers' compensation for workplace injuries at the same rate as civilian workers; claims may not be denied solely on the basis of incarcerated status. Incarcerated workers have the right to form grievance committees and to file complaints with OSHA and the NLRB without retaliation.

This policy requires goods made by incarcerated labor to carry a clear disclosure label, and requires companies using prison labor to disclose that in their financial filings. It also prohibits government contracts with companies that use prison labor to undercut prevailing wages.

Mandatory Labeling of Goods Produced by Incarcerated Labor

All goods manufactured, assembled, or processed in whole or in part by incarcerated labor must bear a clear disclosure label; corporations that use prison labor in their supply chains must disclose this in annual SEC filings and supplier responsibility reports. Federal and state government procurement contracts may not be awarded to vendors that use prison labor paying below federal minimum wage without explicit legislative authorization and annual public reporting.

This policy sets a statutory limit of 15 consecutive days — or 20 days in any 60-day period — on solitary confinement, defined as isolation in a cell for 22 or more hours per day. It requires mandatory mental health assessment at day five and day ten. Exceeding these limits constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.

15-Day Statutory Limit on Solitary Confinement

No incarcerated person may be held in solitary confinement — defined as isolation in a cell for 22 or more hours per day — for more than 15 consecutive days or more than 20 days in any 60-day period. Isolation beyond these limits constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Mental health assessment is required at day 5 and day 10 of any solitary placement; a finding of serious mental illness, suicidality, or acute psychiatric distress requires immediate transfer to appropriate therapeutic housing.

The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) define isolation exceeding 15 consecutive days as torture. The U.S. holds an estimated 80,000 people in solitary confinement on any given day.

This policy absolutely prohibits solitary confinement for people with serious mental illness, intellectual disabilities, pregnant or postpartum people, anyone under 21 or over 65, and anyone diagnosed with PTSD or suicidality within the past year. Placing any person in one of these protected categories in solitary confinement is a federal civil rights violation.

Ban on Solitary Confinement for Vulnerable Populations

Solitary confinement is absolutely prohibited for: persons with serious mental illness; persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities; pregnant or postpartum persons; persons under the age of 21; persons over the age of 65; and persons who have been diagnosed with PTSD or suicidality within the preceding 12 months. Placement of a person meeting any of these criteria in solitary confinement is a civil rights violation actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; correctional officers who knowingly place such persons in isolation are subject to individual liability.

This policy caps prison phone and video call rates at $0.07 per minute for audio and $0.14 per minute for video, and prohibits connection fees and account maintenance fees entirely. Forcing incarcerated people and their families to pay exploitative rates to stay in contact drives family breakdown and social isolation.

Prison Telephone and Video Call Rate Caps Must Be Statutory

Interstate and intrastate prison telephone calls may not exceed $0.07 per minute for audio calls and $0.14 per minute for video calls; initial connection fees, account maintenance fees, and paper billing fees are prohibited. These caps apply to all correctional facilities receiving any federal funding, and to all private contractors operating communication services in such facilities. The FCC must enforce these caps by rule; Congress must codify them by statute so they cannot be reversed by future rulemaking.

Before FCC action, prison phone calls cost up to $14/minute in some facilities. Research consistently shows that family contact reduces recidivism.

This policy guarantees every incarcerated person at least 30 minutes of free phone or video communication per week, which cannot be conditioned on behavior or account balance. Maintaining family connections during incarceration reduces reoffending and supports successful reentry.

Minimum Free Communication Access for All Incarcerated Persons

Every incarcerated person must have access to at minimum 30 minutes of free telephone or video communication per week; this minimum may not be conditioned on good behavior, disciplinary status, or financial account balance. Facilities may not profit from the provision of minimum free communication; all revenue from in-person communication services above cost must fund re-entry and education programs.

This policy strictly limits school resource officers to responding to actual criminal offenses and prohibits them from taking enforcement action for school rule violations — like dress code infractions, tardiness, or classroom disruptions. Using police to enforce school rules pushes students, especially students of color, into the criminal justice system for ordinary adolescent behavior.

School Resource Officers May Not Enforce School Disciplinary Rules

School resource officers employed in or assigned to K-12 schools are strictly limited to responding to conduct constituting criminal offenses under state law. SROs may not issue citations, make arrests, or take enforcement action for violations of school dress codes, student code of conduct, tardiness, classroom disruption, or other non-criminal behavioral matters. Schools must have a licensed counselor, psychologist, or social worker assigned before any SRO may be assigned; the ratio of counselors to students must meet ASCA recommendations (1:250) before SRO funding may be used.

Approximately 14 million students attend schools with police but no counselor. Research shows SRO presence increases suspensions and arrests without improving school safety.

This policy requires every school district with resource officers to publicly report annual data on all school-based arrests and citations, broken down by race, grade level, sex, and disability status, with the Department of Education publishing it in a searchable database. Without this data, the scale of school-to-prison pipeline practices remains invisible.

Mandatory Annual Reporting on School-Based Arrests and Citations

Every school district employing or hosting school resource officers must report annually to the Department of Education: total citations and arrests by school, grade level, race, sex, and disability status; the specific offense charged; and the disposition of each case. The Department of Education must publish this data publicly in a searchable database. Patterns showing racial or disability-based disparate enforcement trigger Title VI and IDEA investigation; schools with sustained findings must remove SROs and redirect funding to counseling.

This policy requires schools to exhaust a documented restorative justice process — including a restorative conference with the student, family, and affected parties — before referring any student to police for non-criminal conduct. Discipline problems should be handled educationally first, not by arrest.

Restorative Justice Process Required Before Police Referral for Non-Criminal Conduct

Before referring any student to law enforcement for non-criminal behavioral matters, schools must exhaust a documented restorative justice process, including a restorative conference involving the student, family, and affected parties. Schools that document compliance with restorative process requirements receive priority in federal school safety grant funding. Schools that refer students to law enforcement for non-criminal conduct without documented restorative process completion lose access to federal SRO funding for 3 years.

This policy prohibits law enforcement from using a minor equipment violation — like an air freshener on a mirror, a small windshield crack, or a dim license plate light — as a pretext to search a vehicle and its occupants when there is no actual criminal suspicion. Pretextual traffic stops are a primary mechanism of racially biased policing.

Ban on Pretextual Traffic Stops for Equipment Violations

Law enforcement officers may not conduct a search of a vehicle, its occupants, or their belongings on the basis of a traffic stop for minor equipment violations — including but not limited to air fresheners, cracked windshields, tinted windows, or license plate light defects — without independent articulable reasonable suspicion of criminal activity unrelated to the equipment violation. Evidence obtained from a search conducted in violation of this section is inadmissible in any criminal or civil proceeding. Any person subjected to an unlawful pretextual search has a private right of action for damages of at least $5,000 plus attorneys' fees.

Research documents that Black and Latino drivers are stopped at disproportionately higher rates for minor equipment violations used as pretexts for drug searches. The Supreme Court's holding in Whren v. United States (1996) has enabled systematic pretextual policing.

This policy prohibits municipalities from deriving more than 15% of their general fund revenue from traffic fines, court fees, and civil forfeiture. Revenue above the cap must go to a state education fund, and municipalities that repeatedly exceed the cap face state oversight. Policing should not be a revenue-generation operation.

Municipal Traffic Fine Revenue May Not Exceed 15% of General Fund

No municipality may derive more than 15% of its general fund revenue from traffic fines, court fees, civil forfeiture proceeds, or other law enforcement-generated revenues. Revenue above the 15% cap must be remitted to a state education fund; municipalities that exceed the cap for two consecutive fiscal years are subject to state oversight and must submit a remediation plan. The Department of Justice must annually audit and publicly publish fine revenue as a percentage of general fund budget for all municipalities above 5,000 population.

The 2015 DOJ report on Ferguson, Missouri found that traffic enforcement had become the city's primary revenue mechanism, with quotas driving discriminatory enforcement.

This policy prohibits law enforcement agencies from setting quotas requiring officers to meet numerical targets for traffic stops, citations, or arrests. Enforcement quotas pressure officers to find violations where none exist rather than exercise genuine professional judgment.

Statutory Ban on Law Enforcement Enforcement Quotas

No law enforcement agency receiving federal funds may establish, maintain, or enforce any quota system requiring officers to meet numerical targets for traffic stops, citations, arrests, civil forfeitures, or any other enforcement activity. Quota systems include formal written policies, informal supervisor directives, and performance evaluation criteria that reward or penalize officers based on enforcement volume. Officers who report quota pressure are protected as whistleblowers; agencies found to operate quota systems lose federal Byrne JAG and COPS grant eligibility for 3 years.

This policy requires all law enforcement agencies to collect and report to the FBI the demographic data of every traffic stop — including the reason for the stop, whether a search occurred, and the outcome — and publish it publicly in searchable form by agency. Racial disparities in traffic enforcement cannot be addressed if they are never measured.

Mandatory Traffic Stop Demographic Data Collection and Publication

All law enforcement agencies must collect and report to the FBI the race, ethnicity, sex, and age of every person subjected to a traffic stop; the reason for the stop; whether a search was conducted and the basis; whether contraband was found; and the outcome of the stop. This data must be published in a publicly accessible, agency-level, searchable national database updated quarterly. Agencies that fail to report lose federal law enforcement grant eligibility; statistical patterns showing racially disparate stops trigger automatic DOJ Civil Rights Division review.

This policy abolishes cash bail for all non-violent felonies, misdemeanors, and non-criminal violations — so that wealth no longer determines who waits for trial at home and who waits in a jail cell. Pretrial detention requires an individualized hearing and clear, convincing evidence of a specific danger that no other condition can address.

Wealth May Not Determine Whether a Person Awaits Trial in Jail or at Home

Cash bail must be abolished for all non-violent felonies, misdemeanors, and non-criminal violations; pretrial detention for these offenses may only be imposed after an individualized hearing where the government demonstrates, by clear and convincing evidence, that the defendant poses a specific and articulable threat of violence or flight that cannot be adequately managed by non-monetary conditions. For violent felonies, courts may impose cash bail only as a last resort after considering non-monetary supervision alternatives; no person may be detained for inability to pay. Private commercial bail bondsmen are prohibited from operating as a for-profit extension of the pretrial detention system. Commercial bail bond companies must be phased out within three years; surety bonds for released defendants must be administered through nonprofit or government programs only. Criminal enforcement and a private right of action for injunctive relief and damages are available against any jurisdiction that continues to detain persons solely on the basis of cash bail in violation of this prohibition.

On any given day, approximately 470,000 people are held in U.S. jails awaiting trial — the majority for inability to pay cash bail, not because of flight risk or danger. People detained pretrial are more likely to lose their jobs, housing, and custody of children — and more likely to accept plea deals — regardless of guilt.

This policy requires every jurisdiction to establish a pretrial services program that conducts individualized assessments, recommends the least restrictive conditions, and provides support — including court date reminders and transportation assistance — to defendants released before trial. The alternative to cash bail must be a real system, not an empty promise.

Courts Must Use Pretrial Services, Supervision, and Support as the Default Alternative to Detention

Every jurisdiction must establish a pretrial services program that: conducts individualized pretrial risk assessments using validated, audited, non-commercial tools; recommends the least restrictive conditions necessary; provides supervision, reminders, and support to defendants released pending trial including court date reminders, transportation assistance, and connections to housing and services. Electronic monitoring may only be imposed where necessary; ankle monitors may not be used as a revenue-generating tool and their cost may not be billed to defendants. Pretrial release conditions must be the least restrictive necessary to ensure appearance and public safety; employment, housing, or family obligations must be considered in setting conditions. Violations of non-financial release conditions may result in modified conditions, not automatic detention, unless the violation independently demonstrates danger. Criminal enforcement and a private right of action are available to defendants subjected to cost-billed monitoring or automatic detention for non-financial condition violations in contravention of this provision.

This policy requires all pretrial risk assessment tools to be publicly available, annually audited for racial disparities, and prohibited from using factors like zip code or prior arrests without conviction that function as racial proxies. Any tool used to predict dangerousness must be transparent, validated, and subject to challenge.

Automated Risk Assessment Tools May Not Be the Sole Basis for Pretrial Detention

Pretrial risk assessment tools used in any jurisdiction receiving federal criminal justice funding must: be publicly available and subject to independent annual disparate impact audits; not include factors that serve as proxies for race, such as zip code of residence, employment status, or prior arrest without conviction; be validated for accuracy in the jurisdiction in which they are used; and be treated as one input to judicial decision-making, not as a binding algorithmic determination. No person may be detained solely because an algorithmic tool assigns them a high-risk score; a judge must independently review and articulate specific, individualized reasons for detention beyond the score. Jurisdictions that use risk assessment tools must publicly report annual statistics on pretrial detention rates by race, gender, and offense type; the DOJ must audit these reports and may withhold federal funding from jurisdictions with documented racially disparate outcomes. Criminal enforcement and a private right of action are available to any defendant detained solely on the basis of an algorithmic score without the required individualized judicial determination.

Studies of widely used pretrial risk assessment tools have found significant racial disparities in scores and outcomes. The COMPAS risk assessment tool, used in multiple states, was found to be no more accurate at predicting recidivism than untrained members of the public.

This policy requires releasing any defendant who has been in pretrial detention for 90 days without a trial, unless the government can demonstrate extraordinary circumstances. The 90-day clock cannot be paused for court backlogs or understaffed public defenders.

Defendants Who Cannot Afford Bail Must Be Tried Within 90 Days or Released

Any defendant held in pretrial detention who has not been brought to trial within 90 days of arraignment must be released on non-monetary conditions unless the government demonstrates extraordinary circumstances justifying continued detention; the 90-day clock may not be tolled for court congestion, underfunding of public defenders, or prosecutorial delay. Prosecutors must be required to announce trial readiness within 30 days of arraignment for detained defendants; failure to do so triggers mandatory review of detention status. Courts must track and report pretrial detention length by offense type, race, and jurisdiction; the DOJ must establish benchmarks for reasonable pretrial detention periods and may withhold federal Byrne JAG grants from jurisdictions that systematically exceed them. Criminal enforcement and a private right of action for immediate release and damages are available to any detained defendant whose 90-day speedy trial guarantee has been violated.

The average length of pretrial detention in the U.S. has grown significantly over the past two decades, with some defendants waiting years before trial. Long pretrial detention correlates strongly with wrongful conviction rates.

This policy repeals mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug possession and distribution offenses and restores full judicial discretion to impose a sentence below sentencing guidelines when individual circumstances warrant it. Mandatory minimums have driven mass incarceration without improving public safety.

Judges Must Have Full Sentencing Discretion for Non-Violent Drug Offenses

Mandatory minimum sentences for all non-violent drug possession and low-level distribution offenses must be repealed; judges must be permitted to sentence below any guidelines range for non-violent drug offenses where individualized circumstances warrant a lesser sentence. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act framework must be enacted: (1) reducing mandatory minimums for repeat drug offenses from 20 years to 10 years and from life to 25 years; (2) expanding the federal "safety valve" that allows judges to sentence below mandatory minimums to cover defendants with up to four criminal history points; (3) making the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act's crack/powder disparity reduction retroactive. The U.S. Sentencing Commission must be required to conduct racial impact assessments of all guideline amendments before adoption. Criminal enforcement is available against any prosecutor who uses mandatory minimum charges solely as leverage to coerce guilty pleas in violation of this provision; a private right of action for injunctive relief and damages is available to any defendant subjected to a mandatory minimum sentence for a non-violent drug offense in contravention of this section.

Mandatory minimum sentences have contributed to a 700% increase in the federal prison population since the 1970s. Approximately 75% of people serving federal mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses are people of color.

This policy eliminates the remaining disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine sentences — which currently punish the same drug in two forms at an 18:1 ratio — and applies this elimination retroactively to anyone currently serving a sentence under the unjust disparity. The disparity has always had a racially discriminatory effect with no scientific basis.

The Crack and Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity Must Be Eliminated and Applied Retroactively

The remaining 18:1 disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine sentences under federal law must be eliminated; equivalent quantities of crack and powder cocaine must trigger identical sentencing guidelines. This elimination must apply retroactively: any person currently serving a federal sentence based on the pre-2010 100:1 or post-2010 18:1 disparity must be eligible for resentencing; the Bureau of Prisons must notify all eligible individuals within one year and process resentencing petitions within 180 days of filing. Prosecutors may not oppose resentencing petitions solely on grounds of finality where the sentence would be materially shorter under the corrected guidelines. A federal public defender must be appointed for every eligible individual who cannot afford counsel for resentencing. Criminal enforcement is available against any official who obstructs notification, processing, or appointment of counsel required by this provision; a private right of action for injunctive relief, damages, and attorneys' fees is available to any eligible individual denied timely resentencing review.

The original 100:1 crack/powder disparity was enacted in 1986 and has had a documented racially disparate impact, with Black defendants comprising the vast majority of crack cocaine prosecutions. The 2010 Fair Sentencing Act reduced the disparity to 18:1 but did not make the change retroactive.

This policy establishes a second look mechanism allowing federal courts to reduce sentences for people who have served at least ten years, based on demonstrated rehabilitation, changed circumstances, disproportionality of the original sentence, or changes in law. People can and do change — the law should create a path to reflect that.

Every Person Serving a Sentence Longer Than Ten Years Must Be Eligible for a Meaningful Second Look

Federal law must establish a "second look" mechanism under which every person who has served at least ten years of a federal sentence is eligible for a court-ordered sentence reduction based on: demonstrated rehabilitation, changed circumstances, disproportionality of the original sentence, or changes in law that would have resulted in a shorter sentence if applied at the time of conviction. The court must give substantial weight to: institutional record, risk assessment scores, release plan, family circumstances, and time already served. Prosecutors bear the burden of demonstrating why continued incarceration serves a penological purpose; the passage of time and rehabilitation must be given significant mitigating weight. Second look reviews must occur every three years for any individual not released; the court may not deny a review without a written, individualized explanation. Criminal enforcement is available against any official who interferes with an individual's access to second look proceedings; a private right of action for mandamus relief and damages is available to any individual denied a required review or a required written explanation.

The U.S. has approximately 200,000 people serving life or virtual life sentences — more than any other country. Research on recidivism shows that risk of reoffending decreases sharply with age, making long sentences increasingly difficult to justify on public safety grounds.

This policy requires federal courts to conduct a proportionality review for any sentence over 20 years for a non-violent offense or any life-without-parole sentence imposed on someone under 25, and to reduce sentences found grossly disproportionate. Sentences that shock the conscience must be subject to correction.

Sentences Grossly Disproportionate to the Offense Must Be Subject to Mandatory Judicial Review

Federal courts must conduct a proportionality review for any sentence exceeding 20 years for a non-violent offense or any sentence of life without the possibility of parole imposed on a defendant who was under 25 at the time of the offense; sentences found grossly disproportionate must be reduced to the maximum proportionate term. The Supreme Court's holdings in Graham v. Florida and Miller v. Alabama — prohibiting mandatory life-without-parole for juveniles — must be codified by statute and extended to all individuals who were under 25 at the time of the offense, reflecting current neuroscience on brain development. Sentencing enhancements based on prior convictions for offenses that have since been decriminalized or reclassified must be prohibited; courts must recalculate criminal history scores excluding such offenses. No person may be sentenced to death or life without parole for a non-homicide offense. Criminal enforcement is available against any sentencing authority that imposes a mandatory life-without-parole sentence on an individual under 25 without the required proportionality review; a private right of action for resentencing and damages is available to any individual sentenced in violation of this section.

The Supreme Court has recognized a categorical bar on mandatory life-without-parole for juvenile offenders, but courts have applied this ruling inconsistently. Brain science research indicates that the prefrontal cortex — governing impulse control and judgment — is not fully developed until age 25.

This policy requires Congress to enact the Solitary Confinement Reform Act, limiting solitary to 15 consecutive days, imposing an absolute ban for juveniles, pregnant people, and those with serious mental illness, and requiring mental health assessments for anyone in solitary for more than three days. People in solitary must be permitted at least four hours out of their cell daily.

Extended Solitary Confinement Exceeding 15 Consecutive Days Must Be Banned, With Absolute Prohibition for Juveniles and Those With Mental Illness

Congress must enact the Solitary Confinement Reform Act that: (1) prohibits placement of any incarcerated person in solitary confinement — defined as isolation from human contact for 22 or more hours per day — for more than 15 consecutive days, consistent with the UN Nelson Mandela Rules; (2) imposes an absolute ban on solitary confinement for: (a) juveniles under age 21; (b) pregnant people and postpartum individuals; (c) people with serious mental illness, intellectual disability, or traumatic brain injury; and (d) people who have been in solitary for 15 days within the preceding 60 days; (3) requires mental health screening within 24 hours of any solitary placement, with mandatory release if a serious mental health condition is identified; (4) requires individualized hearings with notice, counsel, and an opportunity to respond before any placement; (5) applies to all federal, state, and local facilities receiving federal funds; and (6) provides a private right of action for any person held in violation, with compensatory and punitive damages and attorney's fees.

The United States holds an estimated 60,000–80,000 people in solitary confinement on any given day — more than any other country. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has classified extended solitary confinement as torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

This policy requires the FCC to cap all prison and jail phone and video call rates at $0.06 per minute — including intrastate calls — and prohibit all connection fees, technology fees, and account maintenance fees. Exploitative communication rates compound the punishment of incarceration by isolating families.

Incarcerated People and Their Families May Not Be Charged Exploitative Rates for Phone and Video Communication

The FCC must finalize and enforce rules that: (1) cap the rate for all interstate and intrastate calls from correctional facilities at $0.06 per minute for voice and $0.06 per minute equivalent for video, consistent with the FCC's 2024 rule, and prohibit any additional per-call connection fees, technology fees, or account maintenance fees; (2) prohibit any exclusive monopoly telecommunications contract between a corrections facility and a single provider — facilities must allow at least three competing providers for voice and video services; (3) ban commissions paid by telecom providers to correctional facilities or state departments of correction — the Site Commission Prohibition Act framework; (4) require all correctional facilities to provide a minimum of one free, unmonitored call per week to legal counsel for every incarcerated person; (5) prohibit recording or monitoring of attorney-client calls; and (6) impose civil penalties of $100,000 per day per facility that charges rates above the FCC cap, with a private right of action for families and incarcerated individuals to recover overcharges with treble damages.

Prison phone companies have historically charged rates as high as $14 per minute plus connection fees, extracting hundreds of millions of dollars annually from incarcerated people and their low-income families. Research shows family contact during incarceration significantly reduces recidivism.

This policy requires Congress to amend federal law so that all incarcerated workers are paid at least the federal minimum wage, covered by OSHA workplace safety standards, and protected from coercive labor assignments. It also proposes repealing the 13th Amendment exception that currently permits prison labor as a form of involuntary servitude.

All Incarcerated Workers Must Be Paid Federal Minimum Wage, Protected From Coercive Labor Assignments, and Covered by OSHA

Congress must amend the Fair Labor Standards Act and 29 U.S.C. § 652 to: (1) require that all incarcerated individuals performing labor — in any federal, state, or private correctional facility — be paid no less than the federal minimum wage for all hours worked, with no deductions for room and board or incarceration costs; (2) prohibit any correctional facility from disciplining, placing in solitary, reducing good-time credits, or otherwise retaliating against any incarcerated person who refuses a work assignment; (3) extend full OSHA protections to all incarcerated workers — including the right to refuse unsafe work, access to OSHA inspection, and protection from retaliation for safety complaints; (4) prohibit private corporations from contracting for prison labor unless they pay the same prevailing wages and benefits as non-incarcerated workers performing comparable work; (5) direct the DOL to enforce minimum wage and OSHA requirements in all federally funded correctional facilities; and (6) repeal the exception clause in the 13th Amendment — by constitutional amendment — that permits involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime.

The 13th Amendment's exception clause permits effectively unpaid labor in prisons; some incarcerated workers earn as little as $0.63 per hour — or nothing at all in some states. Prison labor generates an estimated $2 billion in goods and services annually, primarily benefiting state governments and private corporations.

This policy requires automatic expungement — without petition, fee, or court appearance — of all federal marijuana convictions for possession and for offenses that would not be prosecutable under current state legal frameworks. It conditions federal criminal justice funding on states doing the same for state-level marijuana convictions.

All Federal and State Marijuana Possession Convictions Must Be Automatically Expunged Without Petition, Fee, or Delay

Congress must enact the Marijuana Justice Act framework by: (1) requiring automatic expungement — without petition, filing fee, or court appearance — of all federal convictions for marijuana possession and all federal convictions for marijuana offenses that would not be prosecutable under a legal state framework; (2) conditioning federal criminal justice assistance funding on states enacting automatic expungement programs for all marijuana possession convictions within two years; (3) directing the DOJ to develop a national expungement portal allowing individuals with marijuana convictions in any state to apply for federal record sealing at no cost, with processing guaranteed within 90 days; (4) requiring agencies that administer federal benefits, federal student loans, and federal housing assistance to automatically remove any disqualification triggered by a marijuana conviction that has been expunged; and (5) extending automatic sealing — not just expungement — to all convictions for offenses that have since been decriminalized or reduced in severity, so that sealed records may not be accessed by employers, landlords, or licensing boards.

An estimated 40,000 people are currently incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses; millions more carry conviction records that limit housing, employment, and educational opportunities. Black Americans are approximately 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Americans despite similar usage rates.

This policy mandates a Veterans Treatment Court in every federal judicial district and provides $500 million annually in dedicated federal funding to support them, including full integration with VA services. Veterans who come into contact with the criminal justice system deserve a specialized, trauma-informed court that understands military service, PTSD, and traumatic brain injury.

Veterans Treatment Courts Must Be Federally Funded in Every U.S. Judicial District and Equipped With Full Wraparound Services Including VA Integration, Housing, and Employment

Congress must: (1) mandate the establishment of a Veterans Treatment Court (VTC) in every federal judicial district in the United States — ensuring no veteran faces a court system without access to a specialized, trauma-informed docket; (2) authorize $500 million annually in dedicated federal funding for VTCs — including grants for state and local VTC programs — with funding contingent on courts meeting minimum standards: VA-assigned Veterans Justice Outreach (VJO) specialists on-site, peer support mentors who are veterans themselves, and formal coordination agreements with VA mental health, substance use, and housing programs; (3) require VTCs to serve veterans facing any non-violent offense — including drug offenses, DUI, theft, domestic violence, and fraud — where the underlying conduct is connected to service-related PTSD, TBI, MST, or substance use disorder, as determined by clinical assessment; (4) prohibit VTC dismissal of a veteran from the program without a mandatory review hearing and appeal opportunity; (5) establish a Veterans Justice Ombudsman within DOJ to receive complaints from veterans denied VTC access, expelled without due process, or subjected to harsher treatment than civilian diversion programs; (6) require VTCs to track and publish completion rates, recidivism rates, and demographic breakdowns annually — with DOJ publishing a national report comparing outcomes against standard criminal dockets.

Approximately 181,000 veterans are incarcerated in the U.S. and an estimated 1.4 million veterans are under correctional supervision. Veterans with PTSD and TBI are significantly more likely to be arrested for conduct directly related to service-connected conditions.

This policy reforms the military discharge review process so that veterans with PTSD, traumatic brain injury, or military sexual trauma can get upgraded discharges — removing the 15-year time limit on applications and requiring favorable presumptions for PTSD-related conduct. Unjust discharges deny veterans benefits they earned through service.

The Military Discharge Review Process Must Be Reformed to Eliminate Barriers for Veterans With PTSD, TBI, or MST — and Congress Must Establish a Direct Federal Court Review Track

Congress must reform the military discharge upgrade process to: (1) eliminate the 15-year statute of limitations on discharge upgrade applications — any veteran, at any point in their life, must be able to apply to their service branch's Discharge Review Board (DRB) or Board for Correction of Military Records (BCMR) for a discharge upgrade; (2) establish a rebuttable presumption of upgrade for any veteran whose discharge was connected to PTSD, TBI, or Military Sexual Trauma (MST) — placing the burden on the military to demonstrate the discharge was not connected to a diagnosable service condition before denying the upgrade; (3) require DRBs and BCMRs to apply the "benefit of the doubt" standard from VA disability claims law to all discharge upgrade applications — meaning any reasonable doubt about the reason for a veteran's discharge behavior is resolved in the veteran's favor; (4) mandate that the National Personnel Records Center provide complete service records to veterans and their attorneys within 30 days of an upgrade application, at no cost; (5) prohibit any DRB or BCMR from denying a discharge upgrade without a written explanation of each basis for denial and a statement of the evidence relied upon; (6) create a direct federal court review track — allowing veterans denied a discharge upgrade to bring a de novo review claim in U.S. District Court, with attorney's fees awarded to prevailing veterans; and (7) retroactively restore VA benefits eligibility to any veteran who receives a discharge upgrade, back to the original date of discharge.

Tens of thousands of veterans have been discharged with Other Than Honorable (OTH) characterizations for conduct directly caused by undiagnosed PTSD, TBI, or MST — rendering them ineligible for VA benefits they earned.

This policy removes all felony-level military offenses — including all sexual assault cases — from chain-of-command prosecutorial authority and assigns them to independent military prosecutors. Justice for military sexual trauma cannot come from within the chain of command that failed to prevent it.

Military Sexual Trauma Prosecutions Must Be Removed From the Chain of Command and Assigned to an Independent Special Victims Prosecutor With Full DOJ Oversight

Congress must: (1) fully implement and expand the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act — removing all felony-level offenses, including all sexual assault and MST offenses, from chain-of-command prosecutorial authority and assigning them exclusively to independent military prosecutors within a newly established Office of the Special Trial Counsel (OSTC); (2) extend OSTC jurisdiction to all MST-related retaliation offenses — including the investigation of commanding officers or supervisors who took adverse actions against service members who reported MST, even where the underlying assault charge is resolved; (3) require OSTC prosecutors to be civilian DOJ attorneys detailed to the military — serving 3-year terms, outside the military promotion system, with no chain-of-command reporting relationship to the military unit involved; (4) establish a private right of action for MST survivors against the United States for: (a) deliberate indifference by a commanding officer to a known MST perpetrator; (b) retaliation against an MST reporter; (c) denial of a discharge upgrade connected to MST; with damages of up to $500,000 and attorney's fees; (5) require all military branches to submit to DOJ an annual MST prosecution report — including charges filed, charges declined with reasons, conviction rates, and sentence lengths — disaggregated by perpetrator rank and survivor gender identity; (6) establish a 10-year statute of limitations for MST civil claims against the United States — and toll the limitations period for the duration of any discharge upgrade proceeding.

The Department of Defense estimated approximately 8,942 sexual assaults were reported in fiscal year 2022 — a figure widely considered a significant undercount of actual prevalence given documented retaliation and reporting barriers.

This policy prohibits the deportation of any person who served honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces, regardless of immigration status or criminal history, and creates expedited citizenship pathways for eligible veterans. People who risked their lives for this country should never be deported from it.

Undocumented Veterans and Green Card Holders Who Served in the U.S. Armed Forces Must Be Protected From Deportation, Granted an Expedited Citizenship Pathway, and Provided Full Retroactive VA Benefits

Congress must: (1) enact an absolute prohibition on the deportation of any person who served honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces — regardless of current immigration status, conviction history, or length of service — codified as an affirmative defense in immigration proceedings with no discretionary exceptions for ICE or the immigration courts; (2) create an expedited citizenship pathway for any non-citizen who served or is serving in the U.S. military — requiring USCIS to process naturalization applications from military service members and veterans within 90 days, at no cost, with a private right of action against USCIS for processing delays; (3) restore VA benefits eligibility retroactively to all veterans who were deported or rendered ineligible for VA care due to immigration status — and establish a process for deported veterans to apply for VA benefits from abroad, with a right to repatriation for any veteran who demonstrates an ongoing service-connected medical need; (4) direct VA and DHS to establish a joint Veterans Immigration Assistance Unit — staffed by both VA benefit counselors and USCIS officers — at every VA medical center and regional benefit office; (5) require DOD to provide all separating non-citizen service members with automatic naturalization paperwork and a 90-day expedited processing guarantee before their discharge date; and (6) publish a public registry of all veterans deported since January 1, 2003, and offer each a pathway to repatriation and reinstatement of VA benefits.

An estimated 92,000 non-citizen immigrants are currently serving in the U.S. military, and thousands of veterans have been deported despite their service — often after completing criminal sentences for non-violent offenses that would not trigger deportation for citizens.

This policy abolishes federal civil asset forfeiture entirely — eliminating the authority to permanently seize property without a criminal conviction — and replaces it with criminal forfeiture only, which requires proving the crime first. It establishes a victim compensation fund to ensure that forfeiture abolition does not reduce restitution to actual crime victims.

Civil Asset Forfeiture Must Be Abolished at the Federal Level — No Property May Be Permanently Seized Without a Criminal Conviction, All Forfeiture Proceeds Must Go to the General Treasury, and the Equitable Sharing Program Must Be Eliminated

Congress must: (1) abolish federal civil asset forfeiture — eliminating the authority of any federal agency to permanently seize property without a criminal conviction of the property owner; (2) replace civil forfeiture with criminal forfeiture exclusively — requiring that before any property is permanently forfeited to the government, the government must: (a) charge the property owner with a crime; (b) obtain a criminal conviction beyond a reasonable doubt; (c) prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that the specific property is connected to the convicted offense; (3) eliminate the Equitable Sharing Program — prohibiting any state or local law enforcement agency from transferring seized property or proceeds to a federal agency to circumvent state-level forfeiture reform laws; (4) require the immediate return, with interest at the 10-year Treasury rate, of all property seized through civil forfeiture within the prior 5 years where no criminal conviction was obtained — with DOJ establishing a claims process within 180 days; (5) redirect all future criminal forfeiture proceeds to the General Treasury — prohibiting law enforcement agencies from retaining or spending forfeiture proceeds directly, ending the financial incentive for aggressive seizure practices; (6) establish a private right of action for any person whose property was seized without eventual criminal conviction — with damages of the property's fair market value plus $25,000 per violation plus attorney's fees; and (7) require DOJ to publish annual data on all seizures — including property type, value, owner demographics, and whether a criminal conviction was obtained.

Between 2000 and 2019, law enforcement agencies seized more than $68 billion in property through civil asset forfeiture — the majority without a criminal conviction. The Institute for Justice has documented hundreds of cases where innocent people lost cash, cars, and homes without ever being charged with a crime.

This policy prohibits all law enforcement agencies from directly retaining or spending forfeiture proceeds in agency-controlled accounts, requires all seized assets to be deposited into a general government fund with independent appropriations oversight, and mandates a full public audit of all existing forfeiture funds. Law enforcement must not profit from seizures they initiate.

Law Enforcement Agencies Must Be Prohibited From Directly Retaining or Spending Forfeiture Proceeds, All Existing Forfeiture Funds Must Be Audited, and Any Funds Derived From Seizures Without Convictions Must Be Returned or Redistributed to Affected Communities

Congress must: (1) enact a Law Enforcement Forfeiture Independence Act — prohibiting any federal, state, or local law enforcement agency from: (a) retaining forfeiture proceeds in agency-controlled accounts; (b) spending forfeiture proceeds on agency equipment, personnel, or operations without independent appropriations authority; (c) using forfeiture proceeds to fund any program not authorized through the normal legislative appropriations process; (2) require an independent audit — by the Government Accountability Office, in partnership with a civil rights organization selected by the GAO — of all existing law enforcement forfeiture funds at the federal, state, and local level, with findings published within 2 years; (3) require any law enforcement agency found to have retained proceeds from seizures where no criminal conviction was obtained to return those funds — with priority distribution to: (a) the individuals whose property was seized, where identifiable; (b) community reinvestment funds in the affected jurisdiction; (c) public defense programs; (4) require all law enforcement agencies to publish quarterly, itemized public reports on all seizures — including date, location, amount, property type, owner race and age, and case disposition; (5) establish criminal liability — fines of up to $500,000 and imprisonment up to 5 years — for any law enforcement official who knowingly falsifies forfeiture reports or retains forfeiture proceeds in violation of this section.

Many law enforcement agencies have used forfeiture funds to purchase military-style equipment, luxury vehicles, and other items unrelated to law enforcement needs — with little or no public oversight.

This policy enacts the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act — establishing that no law enforcement agency may permanently seize any property without first obtaining a criminal conviction for an offense directly connected to that property. It provides a private right of action, with mandatory attorney's fees, for anyone whose property is seized in violation of this rule.

Congress Must Abolish Civil Asset Forfeiture — Prohibiting Any Federal, State, or Local Law Enforcement Agency From Seizing Any Property Without First Obtaining a Criminal Conviction, and Ending All Federal Equitable Sharing Programs That Allow Police to Circumvent State Forfeiture Restrictions

Congress must: (1) enact the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act — establishing that no federal, state, or local law enforcement agency may seize, forfeit, or retain any property — including cash, vehicles, real estate, or other assets — without: (a) a criminal conviction of the owner for an offense to which the property is directly connected; (b) clear and convincing evidence that the property was an instrumentality of or proceeds from that specific offense; (2) abolish the federal Equitable Sharing Program — prohibiting any federal agency from transferring forfeiture proceeds to state or local law enforcement agencies that have seized property without a conviction, and eliminating all financial incentives for law enforcement agencies to pursue forfeiture; (3) require that all forfeiture proceeds go to a neutral state general fund — not to the seizing agency's budget — ending the profit motive that drives aggressive forfeiture; (4) require any law enforcement agency that seeks forfeiture to bear the burden of proof — establishing the property's connection to crime by clear and convincing evidence — rather than requiring the owner to prove innocence; (5) require immediate return of all property if no criminal charges are filed within 60 days of seizure; (6) provide all seized property owners with: (a) written notice within 3 business days; (b) free appointed counsel if they cannot afford representation; (c) a prompt hearing within 14 days; (7) criminal penalties — fines up to $1 million and imprisonment up to 10 years — for any law enforcement officer who seizes property in bad faith or falsifies forfeiture documentation; and (8) a private right of action for any person whose property was unlawfully seized, with recovery of property plus damages plus attorney’s fees.

U.S. law enforcement agencies took more property from Americans through civil asset forfeiture than burglars did in at least one recent year — approximately $4.5 billion in forfeitures compared to $3.5 billion in burglary losses. In most states, owners must prove their innocence to recover seized property, reversing the presumption of innocence.

This policy caps solitary confinement at 15 consecutive days and 20 days in any 60-day period in all federal facilities — the international standard for when isolation becomes torture — and absolutely prohibits solitary for juveniles, pregnant people, and those with serious mental illness. It requires independent oversight and quarterly public reporting.

Solitary Confinement Must Be Limited to a Maximum of 15 Consecutive Days — The International Threshold for Torture — With Mandatory Independent Review, Full Due Process, and an Absolute Ban on Isolation for Juveniles, Pregnant Women, and People With Mental Illness

Congress must: (1) cap solitary confinement at 15 consecutive days and 20 days in any 60-day period in all federal correctional facilities — consistent with the UN Nelson Mandela Rules threshold defining prolonged isolation as cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; (2) prohibit the use of solitary confinement under any circumstances for: (a) juveniles under 18; (b) pregnant or postpartum women; (c) people with serious mental illness, intellectual disability, or traumatic brain injury; (d) people who are deaf or have serious physical disabilities that make isolation medically dangerous; (3) require that any placement in solitary confinement: (a) be authorized by a facility superintendent — not a line officer; (b) be accompanied by written justification specifying the specific safety threat posed; (c) trigger automatic independent review within 72 hours by a panel including a mental health professional and an independent oversight officer; (d) be reviewable by a federal judge on an expedited 5-day habeas petition; (4) require all facilities to provide, regardless of housing assignment: (a) a minimum of 4 hours per day out-of-cell time; (b) daily mental health check-ins; (c) unimpeded access to legal mail and attorney communication; (5) establish criminal penalties — imprisonment up to 10 years — for any correctional official who orders or maintains solitary confinement in knowing violation of these standards; and (6) a private right of action for any incarcerated person subjected to unlawful solitary confinement, with damages of $1,000 per day of unlawful isolation plus attorney's fees and injunctive relief.

An estimated 80,000–100,000 people are held in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails on any given day. Studies have found that prolonged solitary confinement causes severe psychological harm including hallucinations, panic attacks, and permanent cognitive damage.

This policy requires all federal and state correctional facilities to publicly report quarterly on every solitary confinement placement — including duration, reason, demographic data, health outcomes, and deaths — in a publicly searchable database. Transparency is the first requirement of accountability.

Every Federal and State Correctional Facility Must Publicly Report All Solitary Confinement Placements — Including Duration, Reason, Demographic Data, and Mental Health Outcomes — And DOJ Must Publish Annual National Data to Track Racial and Disability Disparities

Congress must: (1) require all federal Bureau of Prisons facilities to submit quarterly reports to DOJ and Congress disclosing: (a) total number of people in solitary confinement as of each reporting date; (b) average and maximum duration of placement; (c) reason for placement in each case; (d) demographic breakdown including race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, and age; (e) number of placements exceeding 15 days and the authorization basis for each; (f) number of suicide attempts and self-harm incidents among persons in solitary; (g) number of people released directly from solitary to community supervision; (2) condition any federal criminal justice grants — including Byrne JAG and COPS grants — on state and local facilities submitting equivalent data to the Bureau of Justice Statistics; (3) require DOJ to publish an annual National Solitary Confinement Report compiling all facility data and identifying: (a) facilities with racial disparities in solitary placement rates; (b) facilities exceeding federal duration limits; (c) facilities placing prohibited populations in solitary; (4) require BOP to implement a "step-down" program — prohibiting direct release from solitary to community supervision without at least 90 days in a graduated reintegration unit; (5) criminal penalties for facility administrators who knowingly falsify solitary confinement reporting data; and (6) a private right of action for any civil liberties organization or individual to compel compliance with reporting requirements through federal court.

The United States has no national system for tracking solitary confinement placements, making the full scale of its use difficult to determine. People released directly from solitary to community supervision have significantly higher recidivism rates.

This policy requires the Bureau of Prisons to begin — 180 days before release — providing every incarcerated person with Medicaid enrollment or health coverage, a government-issued photo ID, 90 days of transitional housing assistance, and reentry case management. People should not be released from federal prison with nothing.

Every Person Released From Federal Incarceration Must Receive — Before Release — A Federal Reentry Support Package Including 90 Days of Transitional Housing Assistance, Enrollment in Medicaid or Healthcare Coverage, Government-Issued ID Documents, and a Job Placement Plan

Congress must: (1) require the Bureau of Prisons to provide, beginning 180 days before the scheduled release of every incarcerated person: (a) enrollment in Medicaid or, if ineligible, a federal health coverage bridge plan — effective on the date of release; (b) a government-issued photo ID — including state driver's license or non-driver ID, Social Security card, and birth certificate — obtained on the person's behalf at federal expense, delivered before release; (c) a personalized reentry plan developed with a dedicated case manager, including housing placement, employment referrals, and any required mental health or substance use treatment; (d) a transportation stipend sufficient to travel from the facility to their home community or planned residence; (e) a minimum $1,500 reentry stabilization fund disbursed on release to cover immediate living expenses; (2) establish a National Reentry Housing Network — contracting with nonprofit and government housing providers to guarantee 90 days of transitional housing to any person released from federal custody who cannot demonstrate stable housing — with no sobriety or employment preconditions; (3) prohibit any federal housing assistance, food assistance (SNAP), student loan, or public benefits program from categorically barring individuals based solely on a prior felony conviction — requiring individualized assessment in all cases; (4) require BOP to track and publicly report one-year and three-year recidivism rates for all released individuals, disaggregated by race, gender, offense type, and whether they received each component of the reentry package; and (5) a private right of action for any released person denied required reentry services, with damages for any harm caused by the failure plus attorney's fees.

An estimated 95% of all incarcerated people will eventually be released. People released from incarceration without housing or income support face extremely high rates of homelessness in the first weeks after release.

This policy requires automatic expungement of all federal marijuana convictions within one year, and automatic sealing of all non-violent federal convictions after ten years with no new offenses. It also prohibits using a sealed record as the basis for denying housing, employment, education, or public benefits.

All Federal Marijuana Convictions Must Be Automatically Expunged Within 1 Year — And All Non-Violent Federal Offenses Must Be Automatically Sealed After 5 Years Without Reoffense — Without Requiring Any Petition, Attorney, or Court Appearance

Congress must: (1) require the DOJ to automatically expunge — within 1 year of enactment — all federal convictions for: (a) simple marijuana possession under any quantity; (b) marijuana distribution, cultivation, or trafficking where the quantity involved would now be legal under the most permissive state cannabis law; (c) any offense for which the individual is currently serving a sentence — resentencing them to time served and immediate release; (2) establish automatic sealing — without petition, fee, or court appearance — of all federal criminal records for non-violent offenses where: (a) 5 years have passed since completion of sentence (including probation and supervised release); (b) the individual has no subsequent felony conviction; (c) the offense did not involve violence, weapons, or sexual misconduct — with records sealed from background check systems, employment screening databases, and housing screening databases within 30 days of eligibility; (3) prohibit all employers receiving federal contracts from asking about sealed or expunged records on job applications — and prohibit federal agencies from considering sealed records in licensing, benefit, or employment decisions; (4) require the FBI to: (a) update the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database to reflect all expungements and sealings within 30 days; (b) notify all third-party background check companies of record changes within 30 days; (c) audit background check companies for compliance with updated records; (5) criminal penalties for any employer, landlord, or government agency that uses sealed or expunged records against an individual; and (6) a private right of action for any person whose sealed or expunged record was unlawfully used, with damages of $5,000 per incident plus attorney's fees.

An estimated 40,000 people are currently incarcerated federally for marijuana offenses, many for conduct now legal in a majority of states. Having a criminal record reduces the probability of a job callback by approximately 50%, and the effect is significantly worse for Black applicants.