Bernie Sanders Announces Criminal Justice Reform

Spoiler alert: This is full of yikes.

After no one asked, Bernie Sanders unrolled a brand new plan for overhauling the US prison and justice system. But before we dive into the barrel of yikes, I think it’s important to be fair in our judgment, and his plan does have some positive points. I’m going to address some of these, because I personally am more passionate about reforming our justice system than pretty much any other major issue and you can’t stop me.

The biggest win in Sanders’s plan is the abolishment of solitary confinement. Put another way, Sanders intends to abolish torture. Solitary confinement breaks a person’s brain. It wrecks their psyche. Abolishing it is the right thing to do.

I also happen to agree with legalizing marijuana at a federal level (apologies, my libertarian is showing), and the widespread, mandated use of body cameras for police officers.

That’s, um, that’s pretty much it. Those three things. There are other sentiments I agree with (for example, I too think that we need to “Ensure a Just Transition Post-Release”), but nothing Bernie has to say on the matter is substantiated, helpful, or descriptive. He wants to end “excessive sentencing” but at no point defines what that even means. Sorry, no, I’m not going to give you that power on such a vague basis.

But the rest is worse than obscurity. Let’s get started.

Yike #1: A federal no-call policy and registry of “disreputable federal law enforcement officers.” Speaking of undefined terms, what qualifies as “disreputable?” More importantly, who gets to define it? Recently, my mother wisely cautioned me to consider any proposed legislation or policy in the hands of the political opposition. That’s easy enough for us to do; who here wants Bernie “Four Houses, Married to a Fraudster” Sanders defining what makes a law enforcement officer disreputable? No? No one? Good, glad we’re on the same page. What’s interesting to me is that Sanders clearly has not considered the question from his own perspective. Then again, why would he when his ideal government doesn’t allow for the opposition to rise to power, regardless of the will of the people?

Yike #2: Creating teams of “unarmed first responders, such as social workers, EMTs, and trained mental health professionals” to respond to everything outside of “the most serious of crimes.” I get where he’s coming from on this to be honest, and I agree that police officers in America don’t have a great track record of handing disturbances caused by mentally ill people. That being said, my sister was a social worker, and after hearing about all the sh*t she saw I wouldn’t DREAM of asking her to go into those situations unarmed. We cannot strip first responders of any nature of the right to self-preservation.

Yike #3: “Ensuring all Americans due process.” This makes the list because that’s literally in the Bill of Rights and we might have a president who doesn’t know that.

Yikes #4-5: Spending $14 billion/year on indigent defense and $25 billion over five years to reduce homelessness, plus $500 million on “homeless outreach.” WHERE ARE YOU PLANNING ON GETTING THIS MONEY YOU OLD LOON?! You can’t even specify what you’re going to do with that money and you expect us to just, let you at it?! Get out. Just go away.

Yike #6: Just the whole Medicare for All Thing. Yep, not only do illegal immigrants get it, but prisoners too. And everyone. Which, again, Bernie Boy, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR THIS? What are you going to do when you run out of billionaires in like, 8.3 seconds after being sworn in?

Rather than go on listing yikes, I’m just going to save us all some time and sum up pretty much the whole rest of the plan as throwing money at the problem.

That. Never. Works.

And given the sheer amount of money his ideal government requires, along with how he intends to steal– I mean, procure– that money. . . He’s unfit to be president. That’s all there is to it.