Kamala Harris’s record as California prosecutor hurt her 2020 campaign. Will 2024 be different?

When Kamala Harris ran for president in 2019, criminal justice reform leaders closely scrutinized her career as a prosecutor, with some advocates branding her a “top cop” who lacked a strong progressive record.

Five years later, with the vice-president on track to become the Democratic nominee, the dynamics have fundamentally shifted. Harris’ prosecutorial history, once something of a liability among some Democrats, is now seen as a key asset as she prepares to take on Donald Trump, the ex-president convicted of 34 felonies.

Since Joe Biden’s withdrawal and endorsement of Harris, advocates fighting against police misconduct and mass incarceration said they welcomed a new candidate – while also recognizing Harris’ complex legacy in America’s criminal legal system.

“The potential to uplift this incredible Black woman as the head of the ticket is a powerful moment,” said Isaac Bryan, a California assemblymember and criminal justice reform advocate. “She is ready.”

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Still, he added: “She’s going to have to answer questions about her vision for the criminal legal system, both based on her record and hope for the future. But I’m fairly confident that when given the choice between somebody who has potentially made some mistakes in past policy decision making and somebody who has decided they are above the law … folks will choose the former.”

Born in Oakland, Harris has said she was inspired to become a prosecutor after learning a high school friend had been sexually abused by a family member. She served as a deputy prosecutor in Alameda county, and in 2003 became the first woman and first Black person elected district attorney of San Francisco. She broke those same barriers when she became California’s attorney general in 2010 before her election to US Senate in 2016.

In San Francisco and Sacramento, she championed some reforms, including youth diversion programs and bias training for police, but at times clashed with civil rights and police accountability activists.

“It’s complicated,” said Tinisch Hollins, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, a criminal justice reform group, reflecting on Harris’ DA tenure. “Having a Black woman as DA and having Kamala be accessible to so many of us was inspirational.” She cited Harris’ Back on Track program, which gave some defendants facing their first drug charges an opportunity to access services and avoid incarceration, a model replicated in other cities. “But we were also very critical of Kamala taking a punitive-first approach,” Hollins continued, recalling Harris’ stance on school truancy. As DA, Harris championed state legislation that threatened jail time for parents if their children were repeatedly absent.

As DA and AG, Harris was also criticized for defending convictions in cases where there was evidence of innocence and prosecutorial misconduct; opposing legislation to require AG investigations into police shootings; defending the prison system in civil rights litigation, as the state’s top lawyer and clashing with sex worker rights’ groups. She declined to seek the death penalty as SFDA, but then as AG fought against a challenge to capital punishment.

Jeralynn Brown-Blueford’s 18-year-old son was killed by an Oakland police officer in 2012, and after the local DA declined to file charges, her family advocated for then AG Harris to intervene, but the officer was never prosecuted.

“I’ve been meditating and praying. It’s hard for me because I think as attorney general she made a huge mistake. The whole system failed my son,” she said Monday. Harris was the “lesser of two evils” compared with Trump, Brown-Blueford said, “somebody who will never abide by the rules, who has stacked the court in his favor, who has done all these crimes”. She said she hoped Harris would “right her wrongs” by strongly pushing police accountability.

As senator, Harris championed key reforms, including efforts to overhaul the money bail system and curb solitary confinement. And in the 2020 race, Harris ran to the left of Biden on criminal justice, with a platform that called for independent investigations into police shootings, holding DAs accountable for misconduct, abolishing the death penalty and ending policies that criminalize poverty.

Harris’ 2020 platform included expanded support for public defenders, which Brendon Woods, Alameda county public defender, said was significant: “I’ve been critical of her record as DA and attorney general … but for her to recognize that public defenders throughout the nation are severely under-resourced and attempt to increase funding to me shows that she has evolved.”

Woods said he was horrified at the extremism and demonization of immigrants at the Republican national convention and was excited Harris was stepping up.

Hopes for a Harris ‘reset’

Insha Rahman, director of Vera Action, an organization advocating against mass incarceration, said there were “two Kamala Harrises”, and “the big question is which Kamala Harris on safety and justice will we get?”

“The longstanding version of Kamala Harris proudly owned the role of being ‘top cop’ and generally shied away from taking progressive stances on criminal justice reform. She played it safe and down the middle,” Rahman continued. “Then when she launched her bid for 2020, the world had changed – ‘top cop’ and ‘tough on crime’ didn’t have the same resonance … So she had a progressive prosecutor frame to her policies.”

Reform advocates will be looking to see if Harris departs from Biden’s approach on criminal justice. Biden had leaned into “law and order” messaging on crime and the border, calling for mass police expansion, Rahman said: “The Biden campaign strategy was, ‘let’s not touch an issue that doesn’t seem to be a winner for us, and if we have to, let’s go tough on crime’ … This is the moment for Harris to distinguish herself, for a new reset.”

Rahman also said polls suggested Biden’s “Trump is a convicted felon” attack line was not moving voters, arguing that it stigmatized the one in three Americans who have a criminal record and failed to emphasize Trump’s specific conduct. “Call out Trump for the values contrast that matters to voters. This is a man who is corrupt, who puts self-interest above the law, and who is only out for himself.”

James Forman Jr, a Yale law professor and author of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, said he wanted Harris to use her prosecutorial background to highlight inequality in the criminal legal system: “I hope she’ll say, ‘I learned that people who are the least aggressively prosecuted in this country historically are those with the most power. So I’m going to go after people, institutions, banks, corporations, polluters, those with the most influence – who have always gotten a pass.’”

While it was monumental to have a Black woman lead the ticket, Hollins said Harris still had to earn her support: “Leadership is what matters the most. Having a leader making a vocal commitment to not going back to ‘tough on crime’ would speak to Black communities’ needs. I need to see that.”

Rev Michael McBride, a longtime Harris supporter and co-founder of the Black Church Pac, a group supporting criminal justice reform, said he was thrilled to see Harris replace Biden, recounting how as senator, Biden promoted the infamous 1994 crime bill with racist language warning of “predators on our streets”. Harris, he said, had repeatedly worked with reformers who wanted her to better tackle police misconduct.

“Political candidates by nature are less reformist than they are stewards of the systems they inherit,” he said, arguing Harris’ prosecutorial record was unfairly judged by progressive standards popularized after she held those positions. “If you’ve been directly impacted by the ‘war on drugs’ and mass incarceration of Black community members, I understand the pain and hesitancy … But I believe Kamala Harris has a commitment to criminal justice reform and holding police accountable, and an openness to ensuring we have a more just and equitable system of accountability. And I believe it is our job to push her in that direction.”