Reforming our criminal justice system can’t wait any longer.
I knew I wanted to study law early on. At the College of Idaho, I interned at the local prosecutor’s office. One of the first cases I observed was a 14-year-old boy who had been pulled over for driving without a license on his way to school. His parents, undocumented immigrants, had been terrified to go to the police station to post his $100 bail, fearing they’d be deported. The underfunded public defender’s office hadn’t noticed the situation, and as time went by, it snowballed out of control. It was horrifying to realize how deeply one small mistake—where no one had even gotten hurt—could affect this kid’s future.
That summer, I saw many more examples of how our criminal justice system fails low-income people and other vulnerable populations. Growing up in Middleton, I’d seen it first-hand, including witnessing a family member’s involvement in the system.
That’s why I went to law school to become a public defender. During that time, I interned at public defenders’ offices and started a project to collect prisoners’ stories. I wanted to get others involved, too, and eventually my fellow law students and I collected dozens of stories. Getting to know prisoners as human beings inspired compassion in my colleagues, some of whom said they’d always thought of criminals as bad people. But in reality, people who commit crimes are often regular people who are stuck in poverty or battling mental health or substance use issues.
I carried those stories with me early in my career, when I represented both juveniles and adults in criminal court. Later, I worked for a public defender in Cambodia, where I witnessed some of the greatest human rights violations I’ve seen in my career. People were crowded into tiny, cement rooms and slept on thin bamboo mats. The jail itself did not provide adequate food, so families had to drive in from rural areas to deliver food to them each day.
Most of the folks incarcerated there had committed minor property crimes, like stealing a motorcycle or phone cards, in order to feed their families. After that summer, I wrote a fellowship to return to Cambodia in order to study and advocate for indigenous land rights. That’s where my career in protecting land and housing rights began. My purpose was to reduce root causes of crime—poverty and desperation—by protecting people’s basic needs, such as housing and the ability to feel safe and secure.
Housing and criminal justice reform are closely tied together. At Jesse Tree, we operate a housing crisis hotline—and every month, we hear from hundreds of Treasure Valley families who are unable to pay their rent. Of those families, over one-third have been incarcerated. Their incarceration records cause them great difficulty as they search for employment and housing, since any landlord or employer can easily look up their record. Without the ability to find a job or increase one’s income, it’s obviously much more difficult to pay the bills.
Right now, there are more than 8,600 people in prison in Idaho. Most of them are serving time for nonviolent offenses—over 70% of prison admissions in Idaho are for probation or parole violations. Those imprisoned are disproportionately people of color: in 2017, Black adults in Idaho were imprisoned at five times the rate of white adults, and one in 24 Black men in Idaho was in prison. Our state also has the fourth-highest incarceration rate among women. Every year, prisons cost Idaho taxpayers up to $300 million. (You can learn more about the Idaho prison landscape and its impacts on our community through ACLU Idaho.)
For me, and for many of my neighbors, these statistics hit close to home. I’ve talked to dozens of Bench residents who have been personally affected by the criminal justice system. I recently spoke with a woman whose daughter became addicted to heroin through prescription medication. Instead of being given opportunities to rehabilitate, she ended up spending four years of her life incarcerated for her minor possession charge. I know there are many more stories like this in our neighborhood and our state.
I envision a future where Idahoans who commit nonviolent crimes related to substance use and mental health are provided with opportunities to improve their lives and recover, rather than merely being punished. As a result, Idaho families will thrive. Fewer single parents and families’ lives will be put on hold as people—not criminals, but people—wait for resolutions from the state.
It’s going to take a lot of work to get to that future. I’ve been meeting with local advocates and legislators about their efforts in criminal justice reform, and there are many opportunities for improvement. Some of the first criminal justice-related measures I’ll support as your state senate representative are:
Offering more alternatives to incarceration, such as drug courts piloted in Ada County.
Reaffirming commitment to the long-standing Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), which will strengthen community supervision programs and reduce recidivism, such as by increasing the timely release of people in prison for nonviolent drug and minor property crimes.
I worked with Cherie Buckner-Webb and the ACLU last year on their efforts to pass the Fair Chance Employment Bill, which would remove the “felony” box job applicants need to check in order to get an interview. This bill had some momentum but unfortunately did not get through committee at the end. I would like to bring this back.
Eliminating or reducing mandatory minimum sentences.
Investing in the public defense system, so it has adequate resources to fulfill its constitutional obligations.
This issue is more urgent now than ever before. As our country reckons with its history of systemic racism and addresses the public health crisis of overcrowded prisons in the midst of a global pandemic, we cannot ignore the need for criminal justice reform any longer. That change has to begin at the local level, right here in Boise. I’ve made it my life’s work to fight for the most vulnerable members of my community, and that’s one of the many reasons I’m running to represent District 17. I look forward to continuing this work in the Idaho State Senate.
