Senator Smith calls for refocusing law enforcement, reforming cash bail as matter of racial justice

Minnesota Senator Tina Smith says in Senate floor remarks on criminal justice reform and racial equality after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis that all levels of government need to stop criminalizing property and using criminal justice as a solution for every social ill after four decades on the funding efforts to support housing, mental health and substance abuse, asking police departments to control behavior like loitering or trespassing and public intoxication or nuisance which did not threaten public safety, poverty one reason people especially if color got caught up in the criminal justice system, so to stop criminalizing poverty and start investing in the root causes of social problems by refocusing police and violence prevention and crisis response which connected people to services they needed in a good place to start was by dramatically reforming cash bail.