Ahead of 2020’s presidential election, then-candidate Joe Biden campaigned “to strengthen and reform” the criminal justice system. Among, perhaps, the most publicized steps he’s taken so far was his proclamation last year, marking April 2023 as Second Chance Month — an attempt to give formerly incarcerated people a second chance.
“I believe in redemption — but for hundreds of thousands of Americans released from State and Federal prisons each year, or the nearly 80 million who have an arrest or conviction record, it is not always easy to come by,” President Biden’s proclamation read.
“Three-quarters of formerly incarcerated people remain unemployed a year after their release — and joblessness is a top predictor of recidivism,” the statement also said. “We are not giving people a real second chance.”
Widespread reform is particularly necessary in the criminal justice system to address racial disparities. Data show African-Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white Americans. So, it’s evident why, during the 2020 election season, Black voters expected elected officials to take proactive steps to reform the criminal justice system and support de-carceration.
During the first two years of Biden’s presidency, his criminal justice reform (and crime prevention) efforts included: investing in community-led initiatives to reduce gun violence, nominating more Black and Latino people to be federal court judges, and appointing 37 U.S. attorneys, of whom 20 were Black.
Many Black activists and people who voted for Biden wanted to see more done to fulfill his campaign promise, so his administration’s support of Second Chance Month last year signaled optimism for many.
Now that Second Chance Month 2024 is upon us, here’s a look back at what Biden’s initiative included, and what impact it’s had — or hasn’t had — in the year since.
What is Second Chance Month and what did the Biden administration do?
While the White House brought increased attention to Second Chance Month in 2023, it’s a movement that launched nationwide in 2017, led by the faith-based, nonprofit organization Prison Fellowship (that year, the initiative was recognized by the U.S. Senate). It seeks to “raise awareness, break down barriers, and unlock second chances for the 1 in 3 individuals with a criminal record in America.”
After the Biden administration’s proclamation of Second Chance Month, it followed up later in April with the release of a multi-year Alternatives, Rehabilitation, and Reentry Strategic Plan. The plan is “to strengthen public safety by reducing unnecessary criminal justice system interactions so police officers can focus on fighting crime; supporting rehabilitation during incarceration; and facilitating successful reentry,” the statement read.
Also included in Biden’s actions, he commuted the sentences of 31 Americans who were serving sentences for non-violent drug offences.
What’s been the sentiment since?
While last April’s efforts were lauded as a step in the right direction, the Biden administration has not moved toward making the campaign pledge for a progressive criminal justice system a reality, Vincent M. Southerland, faculty director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at the NYU School of Law, asserted to Atlanta Black Star.
Southerland noted that while the Biden administration has invested in mental health and community violence interventions, these have come by allocating more funding for policing.
“History makes clear that investments in law enforcement exacerbate the inequality of the criminal justice system,” Southerland said. “It brings more people in contact with police officers. This, in turn, leads to an increase in the number of people arrested, prosecuted, convicted, sentenced, and incarcerated.”
A 2015 report by the nonprofit The Sentencing Project, “Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity In The Criminal Justice System,” detailed four key features of the criminal justice system that exacerbate the underlying inequality. One in particular found that criminal justice policies exacerbate socio-economic inequalities by imposing collateral consequences on those with criminal records and by diverting public spending.
Nearly a decade — and two presidencies later — the same problems with the U.S. criminal justice system persist.
“The slow pace is not surprising,” William J. Drummond, a professor at UC Berkeley School of Journalism and author of “Prison Truth: The Story of the San Quentin News,” said to Atlanta Black Star. “Any policy changes have to work their way through a vast bureaucracy. Racial bias permeates all of criminal justice, at all levels. Incarceration is a byproduct of inequities throughout society.”
The nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative, which produces research documenting the harm of mass criminalization, racial discrimination in housing, sentencing, and policing, frequently explains why data show stark disproportionalities in justice involvement for African-American people.
“Race and racial inequality are features, not bugs, of the criminal system,” Southerland added. “Executive action can limit the influence of race on the administration of criminal law. But the diverse ways in which the criminal justice system operates in practice means that no one actor or arm of the government can eliminate the system’s racial harms.
“Unfortunately, in part because of that dynamic, the Biden administration’s policies have not had an outsized effect on the deep racial disparities that plague the criminal system.”
In fact, the Department of Justice under the Biden administration has continued the harmful practices of the past, including the pursuit of capital prosecutions, a position that counters a campaign promise by then-candidate Biden to abolish the federal death penalty.
Southerland added that if there has been one bright spot, it’s Attorney General Merrick Garland issuing a memorandum that, among other things, provided guidance for more proportionate sentencing and encouraged federal prosecutors to seek alternatives to incarceration.
“These are steps in the right direction. It remains to be seen how rigorously those policy directives are implemented.”
The politics of an election year
In February 2024, the White House said the United States was safer than before due to an historic decline in crime. It attributed this to a three-part approach in its statement: “funding effective, accountable policing; investing in intervention and prevention strategies; and keeping especially dangerous guns off our streets and out of dangerous hands.”
According to recent media reports, polls show former president Donald Trump is gaining popularity among Black voters for this year’s presidential election. Trump claimed that the support was because Black people “embraced” his mug shot, knowing what it’s like to have criminal cases against them like he’s experiencing.
What more likely represents the interests of Black voters when it comes to criminal justice reform this election season are represented in two recent polls: around 75 percent of Black voters believe mass incarceration causes many of the problems that lead to unsafe communities; and they want federal and state governments to act on reforms in the criminal justice system.
