On crime and justice, Trump and Harris records differ widely

Criminal justice is often an issue in elections.& SimpleImages/Moment via Getty Images Austin Sarat, Amherst College Though crime and criminal justice policy are central issues in many elections, that’s not true in 2024. Surveys show that relatively few American voters rank crime as their most important concern. Yet both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris say they take those problems seriously. Trump and the Republicans have focused attention on the problem of illegal immigration and the crimes that he says immigrants commit. Harris, as The Economist noted, “is using her history as a prosecutor in San Francisco to burnish her tough-on-crime bona fides.” She has mentioned that background in connection with immigration, drug policy and corporate wrongdoing. As someone who studies crime and justice in the United States, it is clear to me that there are substantial differences between the two candidates, though each of their records contains some interesting twists and turns. Kamala Harris gives her first news conference as attorney general of California in November 2010. AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes Kamala Harris, the prosecutor Harris has a long record of working in the criminal justice system. She worked in the Alameda County district attorney’s office in...