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The United States:
In recent months, the videotaped beating of a suspect by Philadelphia police officers, the Amadou Diallo trial, and the growing Los Angeles Police Department Rampart Division scandal have raised the question: what is the candidate's plan for addressing police brutality? How would the candidate guarantee that police departments implement overdue and necessary reforms that would help reduce the number of abuses through improved training, supervision, and disciplinary programs?
Follow-up:
Politicians like to trumpet their support for law enforcement in campaign season. But correctional officers who rape women inmates -- a phenomenon Human Rights Watch has documented extensively in Michigan prisons, for example -- are violating the law, not enforcing it.
More than one million Americans are behind bars for nonviolent crimes. Would the candidate support eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders?
Follow-up:
A lot of politicians say they "believe in treatment programs." But will they put money behind their beliefs? One-third of the federal anti-drug budget is for treatment and prevention, and two-thirds go to law enforcement and interdiction; those proportions should change.
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Human Rights Watch recommends:
The president should condition federal funding for police and corrections departments on whether they take concrete steps to hold abusive officers accountable. He should increase funding to public agencies that investigate abuses, and support the repeal of legislation that makes it harder for victims of brutality to get redress.
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Human Rights Watch recommends:
The President should withhold prison construction funds to states which have incarcerated too many nonviolent and drug offenders. He should fund alternatives to incarceration, increase support for the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, and discourage lengthy sentences for such offenders.
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