ATLANTA — Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina told reporters Friday at the Red State Gathering that she would make criminal justice reform a high priority if she becomes president.
“The criminal justice system needs a lot of reform. Let’s start with the fact that we have the highest incarceration rates in the world. Let’s also remember that over two-thirds of the people who are incarcerated today are incarcerated for non-violent crimes,” she said. “Let’s also acknowledge that many of the people who are incarcerated got there because of drug offenses.”
Fiorina described how she and her husband lost their daughter to drug addiction and described the issue as very “personal” to her.
“When you have someone struggling with an addiction, throwing them in jail doesn’t help them. It doesn’t help them get on with their lives and so we absolutely need criminal justice reform. We also know that our laws fall unequally sometimes. We know, for example, sometimes that the death penalty falls unequally,” she said.
Congress is expected to take up legislation pertaining to the criminal justice reform issue in the near future.