Issue Position: Criminal Justice Reform

Issue Position

As a former magistrate and a current public defender, I have witnessed first-hand the need for comprehensive criminal justice reform. We must end the school to prison pipeline and stop locking up our children for small mistakes. This starts by promoting alternatives to out of school suspension and emphasizing deterrence options for resource officers. In the 2018 session, I proposed ten criminal justice reform bills.

In my first year in office, I co-sponsored legislation to raise the grand larceny threshold from $200 to $500 and stop needlessly convicting children of felonies. Virginia had one of the lowest grand larceny thresholds in the country: If someone takes something valued at $200 or more, they can be charged with a felony. That means, if a child is cold and takes a coat in the dead of winter, they would often be charged with a felony and sent to prison. While I believe the grand larceny threshold should be raised to $1000, I am pleased we were able to raise the resold to $500. We must continue to focus on smart-on-crime initiatives that keep kids in schools and out of prisons.

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