NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Wednesday, April 29, 2015, 12:03 PM
Updated: Wednesday, April 29, 2015, 1:19 PM
Amid continuing unrest in Baltimore over the death of a young black man in police custody, Hillary Clinton on Wednesday called for widespread use of police body cameras and an end to mass incarceration during her first major policy speech since launching her presidential campaign.
The former senator and secretary of state said the violence in Maryland over the death of Freddie Gray, 25, “tears at our souls” and “has to stop.”
“Those who are instigating further violence in Baltimore are disrespecting the Gray family and the entire community. They are compounding the tragedy of Freddie Gray’s death and setting back the cause of justice,” Clinton said.
“But more broadly, let’s remember that everyone in every community benefits when there is respect for the law and when everyone in every community is respected by the law. That is what we have to work towards in Baltimore and across our country.”
Speaking at Columbia University at an annual forum organized by former Mayor David Dinkins, Clinton said the nation’s justice system has fallen “out of balance,” with minorities most often on the losing end.
She called the expanded use of body cameras a “common sense” measure that “will improve transparency and accountability” and “help protect good people on both sides of the lens.”
As she has increasingly done during her second bid for the presidency, Clinton couched her policy arguments in personal terms.
“Not only as a mother and a grandmother but as a citizen, a human being, my heart breaks for these young men and their families,” she said.
“We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America.”
To repair the sometimes violent rifts in relations between cops and the public created by the death of men including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Eric Garner in Staten Island, “We can start by making sure that federal funds for state and local law enforcement are used to bolster best practices, rather than buy weapons of war,” Clinton said to vigorous applause.
In advocating an end to the large-scale imprisonment of low-level offenders, Clinton noted that “One in every 28 children in our country now has a parent in prison.
“Think about what that means for those children,” she urged.
“Without the mass incarceration that we currently practice, millions fewer people will be living in poverty” and fewer families will be torn apart, Clinton said of a prison system that costs taxpayers $80 billion a year to maintain.
She also pushed strongly for renewed attention to the need for mental health services, drug diversion programs, and substance abuse treatment.
The former first lady’s support for reforming the prison system stands at odds with sentencing policies pursued by her own husband during his presidency.
But Clinton argued that the U.S. would not be taking a safety risk by dialing down on the number of people warehoused in jails.
“If the United States brought our correction expenditures back into line with where they were several decades ago, we would save an estimated $28 billion dollars a year and, I believe, would not be less safe,” she argued, saying “you can pay a lot of police officers” with those funds.
“It's time to change our approach,” she said.
While highlighting her own track record as a senator who supported community policing, Clinton also struck a humbler note.
“I don’t know all the answers. That’s why I’m here — to ask all the smart people in Columbia and New York to start thinking this through with me,” she said.
“I know we should work together to pursue together to pursue alternative punishments for low-level offenders. They do have to be in some way registered in the criminal justice system, but we don’t want that to be a fast track to long-term criminal activity,” she continued. “We don’t want to create another ‘incarceration generation.’”
Clinton concluded by inviting the audience to join her in praying for the people of Baltimore, where rioters have looted stores, clashed with cops, and attacked reporters, and also “for the family of Freddie Gray, and all the men whose names we know and those we don’t who have lost their lives unnecessarily and tragically.”
Although Clinton's remarks coincided with the escalation of tensions in Maryland, Dinkins made clear that her appearance had been scheduled far in advance.
"This is not a campaign stop and we are not campaigning," the former mayor said.
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