Transforming Our Criminal Legal System

For years, policymakers, advocates, and community members have known that our criminal legal system disproportionately punishes Black and brown people – from the failed war on drugs to mass incarceration, to cash bail and the perverse incentive of a for-profit prison industry – yet we have seen too little progress made towards addressing these inequities. To meaningfully address the legacy of these destructive policies, Ayanna knows we must completely reimagine our racist, xenophobic, and fundamentally broken criminal legal system, and construct a new system that is centered on the principles of shared power, freedom, safety, equality, and human dignity. Ayanna has introduced the People’s Justice Guarantee, a bold framework and vision for a more just criminal legal system, to move us closer toward the yet unfulfilled promise of justice for all. Ayanna has advocated for an end to the federal death penalty and secured a commitment from President Biden that no one will be executed by the federal government as long as he is President.