Kamala Harris admits her own California truancy law was a failure

(Image credit: Mason Trinca/Getty Images)

published 17 April 2019

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has received some retroactive criticism about her tenure as a California prosecutor — mainly that she was too tough on crime. Harris is now considered a criminal justice reformer and, as she launches her 2020 Democratic presidential, she has continued to distance herself from that aspect of her previous career.

She has also been scrutinized for championing a 2011 California truancy law when she was California's attorney general. The law ultimately punished parents with jail time if their children missed too much school.

The law was based off Harris' experience as San Francisco's district attorney when she oversaw a truancy program that was meant to reduce high school drop out rates — an important step in preventing them from falling into the criminal justice system themselves. But during an appearance on Crooked Media's Pod Save America, Harris told host Jon Favreau that she said she had no control over how other jurisdictions imposed the law, which led to the arrests. The senator said that she regrets how the law turned out and the "unintended consequences" it created. Regardless, she explicitly told Favreau that she would not support such a law as president. Watch the conversation below. Tim O'Donnell

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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