Hillary to call for police body cameras

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will say Wednesday that all police departments around the country should use body cameras, according to multiple reports.

{mosads}She is expected to lay out her vision for criminal justice reform during a speech Wednesday morning at Columbia University against the backdrop of riots in Baltimore.

An aide told The Huffington Post that she will call for an “end to the era of mass incarceration,” referring to the period over several decades where America’s prison population ballooned to become the largest in the world.

In addition to body cameras, CNN reported that she will call for finding alternative sentences for smaller crimes committed by young people, reforming the probation system and changing the treatment system for mental health problems and drug addiction.

She will also speak about the turmoil in Baltimore for the first time in public. Protesters in the city say that the police mistreat minority residents and have been angered by the death of Freddie Gray, a black 25-year-old who sustained a fatal injury to his spine while in police custody.

She previously addressed the riots in the city in a tweet and at a private fundraising event that was open to her campaign press pool.

Clinton’s comments also come amid a growing interest in criminal justice reform on both sides of the aisle. There are several pieces of legislation in Congress aimed at changing the way the justice system treats offenders or reducing the prison rate. It was unclear whether Clinton would endorse any by name on Wednesday.

In criticizing the results of past justice policy, she will also be — at least implicitly — criticizing her husband’s administration. The 1994 crime bill signed by Bill Clinton, and written by then-Sen. Joe Biden, is seen has having exacerbated some problems within the justice system. Hillary Clinton lobbied for the bill when it passed.

In 2007, Clinton acknowledged that the bill went too far.

“At the time, there were reasons why the Congress wanted to push through a certain set of penalties and increase prison construction and there was a lot of support for that across a lot of communities,” she said at an event in Iowa. “It’s hard to remember now but the crime rate in the early 1990s was very high.”

“But we’ve got to take stock now of the consequences, so that’s why I want to have a thorough review of all of the penalties, of all the kinds of sentencing, and more importantly start having more diversion and having more second chance programs.”