Hillary Clinton Calls for Overhaul of Criminal-Justice System

Democratic candidate points to Freddie Gray’s death, wants broad use of police-body cameras

By Laura Meckler, WSJ
Updated April 29, 2015 8:07 p.m. ET

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday called for broad changes to the criminal-justice system, including the use of body cameras in every police department and reduced incarceration, in the latest evidence of an emerging consensus in both parties on an issue that has been a potent political tool.

The policy ideas marked a new approach for Mrs. Clinton, who took hard-line positions on crime both as first lady and as a U.S. senator.

Mrs. Clinton, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, pointed Wednesday to a string of recent cases in which black men have died at the hands of police. She spoke at length about this week’s riots in Baltimore that followed the death of a man while in police custody.

“These recent tragedies should galvanize us to come together as a nation to find our balance again,” she said in a speech at Columbia University in New York. She cited the impact of incarceration on black men, who make up about 6% of the nation’s population but 37% of its jail and prison population, according to the Census Bureau and Justice Department.

As the nation’s crime rate climbed through the 1970s and ’80s, Republicans routinely pilloried Democrats as being soft on crime. That helped spur the Clinton administration to champion get-tough policies, including the “three strikes” law mandating life sentences for repeat offenders, and funding for a flood of new police officers.

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