[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 140 (Thursday, August 6, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5275-S5277]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. SMITH:
  S. 4466. A bill to authorize the Attorney General to make grants to 
improve public safety, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise today to continue to lift up the 
voices of millions of Americans who are demanding policing reform as a 
necessary

[[Page S5276]]

step on the path towards racial justice in this country. The challenges 
in defeating systemic racism can seem insurmountable, but there are 
clear next steps.
  We need to start by transforming our policing system to root out the 
systemic racism and the culture of violence that is killing Black and 
Brown and indigenous people and people of color.
  I want to talk today about four areas of this work that need our 
urgent attention.
  First, we need to bring justice, accountability, and change to police 
departments by passing the Justice in Policing Act.
  Second, we need to invest in new models of public safety by 
supporting community-led reform and innovation. I am asking the Senate 
to take up and pass my new bill to do just that.
  Third, we need to end the criminalization of poverty, which happens 
when other social systems fail.
  Finally, we need to root out racism in our systems of education, 
healthcare, housing, and economic opportunity so that everyone in this 
country can have the freedom and the opportunity to build the lives 
they choose.
  In order to bring justice, accountability, and change to policing 
departments around the country, we need to start by passing the Justice 
in Policing Act. Led by Senator Booker and Senator Harris, this bill is 
a comprehensive set of needed Federal-level reforms to a system that is 
designed to shield police officers from accountability and consequences 
and denies justice to victims of police violence.
  These reforms--like ending qualified immunity, establishing a 
national use-of-force standard, creating a registry of police 
misconduct, and banning dangerous practices like choke holds and no-
knock warrants--are long overdue.
  Indeed, communities and activists have pushed for many of the reforms 
in this bill for decades. A few weeks ago, I spoke on this floor about 
the urgent need to pass this bill. Unfortunately, this critical 
legislation is still sitting on Leader McConnell's desk. But I promise 
that I will keep fighting until the Justice in Policing Act is signed 
into law.
  Policing needs other changes, too, like banning so-called warrior 
training, which encourages law enforcement officials to see the public 
as hostile enemies. We need to empower the Civil Rights Division of the 
Department of Justice to independently investigate police departments 
that systematically violate the constitutional rights of our 
communities
  We need to reform Federal sentencing to repeal 1994 crime bill 
provisions, like mandatory minimums and draconian sentencing 
enhancements, and we need to prohibit police union contracts that 
create unfair barriers to effective investigations, civilian oversight, 
and holding police departments accountable to the communities they are 
sworn to serve.
  In our work to transform policing, the second step we need to take at 
the Federal level is to support local community-led innovation in 
public safety.
  Although Congress has the responsibility to establish national 
standards for justice and accountability, Federal-level change can only 
go so far. State, local, and Tribal governments are responsible for 
overseeing policing in their communities. I believe that these 
communities know best what will work in their own cities and towns. The 
Federal Government, though, can play a catalytic role by supporting and 
funding innovative, anti-racist policing reform.
  With this in mind, today I am introducing a bill, the Supporting 
Innovation and Public Safety Act, which would help State, local, and 
Tribal governments reimagine policing in their communities by funding 
innovative projects and best practices that will transform how we 
deliver public safety and other social services.
  My bill would empower local governments to develop and implement 
projects to improve public safety through systemic change, not just by 
growing police department budgets.
  There are great examples of innovation already happening. Local 
jurisdictions are experimenting with new ways to provide mental health 
crisis response. They are addressing ways of dealing with gun violence 
as a public health issue and even how to enforce low-level traffic 
safety violations without involving an armed police officer.
  I have long believed that those who are closest to the work know best 
how to get the work done. Through these grants from the Federal level, 
we will be able to help local communities adopt new approaches to 
public safety, tailoring their needs and unique circumstances to what 
they need to do. Then we can develop robust evaluation of these 
community-led projects, which will generate new data and new models of 
public safety in policing and also sow the seeds of progress and broad 
transformation.
  The third thing we need to do at all levels of government is to work 
together to stop criminalizing poverty and using the criminal justice 
system as the solution for every social ill.
  For decades, we have dramatically underfunded efforts to support 
housing, mental health, and substance abuse. And then we criminalize 
the results of this lack of support. We ask police departments to 
control behavior like loitering or trespassing, public intoxication, 
and public nuisances--all offenses that largely don't threaten public 
safety. Then we put people in jail because they have a mental illness 
or lack a safe place to live. Poverty becomes the reason why people, 
especially people of color, get caught up in the criminal justice 
system.
  It is time that we stop criminalizing poverty and start investing in 
solutions to get to the root causes of social problems. We need to 
refocus policing on violence prevention and crisis response, which 
connects people to the services that they need.
  A good place to start is by dramatically reforming cash bail so that 
those who haven't been convicted of a crime don't remain in jail just 
because they can't afford bail. Almost 60 percent of the nearly 750,000 
people currently in jail have not been convicted of any crime. They are 
in jail just because they cannot afford bail, and the data tells us 
that this is yet another burden that falls disproportionately on 
communities of color.
  Indeed, when we criminalize poverty, we facilitate the systemic 
racist harassment, surveillance, and control of Black and Brown, and 
indigenous communities. That is why we need to ban the use of quotas 
for law enforcement officers to enforce so-called broken windows 
offenses. These offenses do not threaten public safety, and they are 
disproportionately enforced on communities of color.
  A recent New York Times investigation found that in many large police 
departments, serious violent crimes make up only about 1 percent of all 
calls for service--1 percent. Many of those same departments are 
solving less than 30 percent of those serious crimes. We could actually 
improve public safety by devoting resources to combating violent crime 
rather than overenforcing low-level offenses in communities of color.
  Let's think about what this means for marijuana offenses. The Federal 
marijuana prohibition is a failed policy that contributes to mass 
incarceration and overpolicing of communities of color. White and Black 
people use marijuana at roughly the same rate, but a Black person is 
almost four times as likely to be arrested for a marijuana offense.
  The Federal Government is behind both State law and public opinion. 
Forty-two States and the District of Columbia already allow some type 
of marijuana use, despite the long-time Federal prohibition.
  It is time to legalize marijuana, and we should do it in a practical 
and commonsense way that protects the health and safety and the civil 
rights of our communities.
  We need to take up and pass Senator Harris's Marijuana Opportunity 
Reinvestment and Expungement Act, the MORE Act, which I am proud to 
cosponsor. The MORE Act would address the devastating impact on 
communities of color on the War on Drugs by expunging marijuana-related 
convictions and reinvesting in community.
  Also, I recently introduced a bill, the Substance Resolution and 
Safety Act, which would ensure that marijuana is regulated to protect 
the health and the safety of youth, of consumers, and of drivers. We do 
this without replicating the racist enforcement patterns of our current 
drug policy.

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  Finally, we need to recognize that racial justice is not only about 
policing and criminal justice reform. We need to root out racist 
policies that are built into our systems of housing, healthcare, 
education, and economic opportunity.
  The legacy of slavery, of oppression, and of discrimination is 
pervasive in these areas and our communities bear the scars of these 
past crimes even as new injuries accumulate. This is why a Black or a 
Brown child living in the neighborhood where George Floyd was murdered 
has fewer opportunities than a White child living just a few miles 
away.
  The impact of generations of stolen labor, of systemic violence, and 
exclusion from opportunity is revealed today in legal disparities, 
achievement gaps, housing instability, and the dramatic difference in 
wealth and wages between White people and people of color.
  Addressing these challenges are crucial to the unfinished work of 
racial justice in our country. This means that we need to implement 
anti-racist practices and policies, like ending the use of armed police 
officers in schools, eliminating discipline disparities, and shutting 
off the school-to-prison pipeline. It means addressing the systemic 
exclusion of Black and Brown and indigenous people from the wealth-
building opportunities of homeownership. It means tackling the root 
causes of racial health disparities, including environmental injustices 
and discrimination in healthcare. It means supporting economic 
opportunity for all by removing racist barriers to employment, 
entrepreneurship, credit, and capital.
  The scale of the injustice that we see in our country can sometimes 
feel overwhelming, and the path can seem very long. These are some 
concrete steps that we can take on that path, and they are necessary 
steps, to fulfill our country's promise of freedom and equity for all 
of us. Community leaders and activists are showing us the path forward, 
and following this path requires us to be courageous, requires us to be 
humble, and, at times, requires us to be uncomfortable. But it is a 
path rooted in love and trust and hope.
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