The Candidates on Criminal Justice Reform….

A couple of days ago, Newsweek published an informative article on which presidential candidate is stronger on the issue of criminal justice reform. Many view this issue as favoring Trump. The reason for the edge is Trump passed the First Step Act, which made significant reforms. Trump, however, has not always acted like a reformer when he threatened Black Lives Matter and confederate monument protesters on more than one occasion. He also used federal police and military forces against these protesters one more than one occasion in more than one city. Biden for his part, has to deal with being a drafter of the 1994 crime bill that critics view as supporting mass incarceration. But that law also included violence against women protections.  In terms of the future, Biden has a significant number of proposals for reform as part of his platform, whereas Trump's platform focuses almost exclusively on the First Step Act. This one is a close one on the merits, as I suggested in the article. I would be interested in the views of criminal law profs here.