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A lot is going to be made of Kamala Harris' record as a prosecutor in the coming days and weeks, and it's likely you'll be hearing a lot of two—almost diametrically opposed— versions of her record from commentators on here. Basically these two:
I'm not going to weigh in on that except to say that, as you read these takes, recognize that it's very easy to present a very good or very bad narrative for ANY prosecutor, given the nature of the work, using cherry-picked data and anecdotes.
Be cautious about what you repost or what conclusions you make from any of these pieces— short of a full systematic overview of all the office's work— which to my knowledge hasn't been done.
As a general rule I think we spend too much energy in US politics trying to suss out a candidate's "true self" (ARE THEY REALLY ONE OF US!?) & not enough just asking them what they would do if elected, & then if elected, holding them to it by asking why they haven't done it yet.
What's not up for debate is that Harris, based on her and Biden's criminal justice platforms, pulls this ticket to the left. That's not particularly hard— that would have been true of most of Biden's 2020 challengers.
It's also true that 2020 Biden's platform would have pulled ANY Dem candidate of the last 30 years to the left. That was true in May, and I'd bet will become more true when the party crafts its policy planks in the post-Goerge Floyd moment.
So here's some issue-based tensions between Harris and Biden's platforms that will have to be reconciled moving forward. Mostly, it's all quite reconcilable and deals more with style and nuance than broad philosophical disagreements.
1. Use of solitary confinement. Biden favors ending it "as punishment", Harris favors ending it altogether. This is important because the courts have generally held that if solitary confinement is being used as a punishment, it requires some form of due process.
As a result, prison officials frequently place inmates in segregation as an administrative matter. Texas banned solitary confinement as punishment in 2017—and it affected < 2% percent of prisoners in isolation. The other 98 percent, held “administratively” were not covered.
2. Policing: Harris vowed to “support a national standard for use of deadly force limited to only when ‘necessary’ and when no reasonable alternatives are available.” That's a big difference from Biden, who really only pledged to reinstitute Obama-Era DoJ oversight of policing.
That said, Post-George Floyd Biden has seemed more open to dramatic action on policing. I would look for Harris/Biden/Dem Part to build a more cohesive answer to this question in the coming weeks- possibly including Harris' embrace of a NTSB-style board. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/09/10/can-kamala-harris-adapt-the-government-s-airplane-safety-model-to-stem-police-shootings
3. Private Prisons. Kamala and Biden both want to phase out the federal use of private prisons, as the Obama administration had attempted before it was rescinded under Trump. No tension there, as private prisons have become a pretty uncontroversial heel for the Dem party.
Good to remember the limitations of that argument in the context of mass incarceration. You can ban private prisons and not do a single thing to unwind mass-incarceration (assuming that is your goal). https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/09/12/here-s-why-abolishing-private-prisons-isn-t-a-silver-bullet
Biden and Harris are also in lockstep on ending cash bail, which is verging on a Dem-party core belief. As a Senator, Harris teamed up with Rand Paul on a bill to end money bail*. Biden called money bail a “modern-day debtors’ prison.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/20/bail-reform-legislation-money-bail-incarceration-us-jail
* A brief aside at this point in the lecture, to note that our criminal justice system is mostly local. In almost every case, when lawmakers or a president is talking about upending some facet of it, they are talking about setting up financial incentives/disincentives for gov'ts.
Anyways, on bail, both support risk-assessment based reforms for determining pretrial detention. Which have their own detractors. https://theintercept.com/2020/07/12/risk-assessment-tools-bail-reform/
Issue 5: Clemency. Here's another place where Kamala has a progressive and fully-fleshed out idea that Biden may be willing to adopt. Clemency is the president's most direct avenue to undo mass-incarceration, one case at a time. Biden's platform merely promised to use it a lot.
Harris proposed taking clemency power out of the hands of the prosecutors at the DoJ & impaneling an independent commission to handle those decisions, as well as a “sentencing review unit” to consider early release for people who have served > 10 years of a 20+ year sentence.
Issue 6: Marijana legalization. Biden has offered confused commentary on this question, but sussing out what he seems to mean- Biden appears to believe that no-one should be in prison for marijuana- but that it shouldn't be legalized.
Kamala on the other hand, sponsored the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act that would have de-scheduled cannabis & worked to mitigate some of the harm from prior convictions/incarceration for marijuana. (Though she was notably, late to this bandwagon)
Issue 7: Mandatory minimums. Kamala wants to end them. Biden wants only to pare them back (eliminate them for "non-violent crimes" only) This one is pretty much that simple, and we should watch to see if the ticket moves to embrace one or the other vision.
OK I think that's it for the interesting tensions between Harris and Biden on criminal justice. If I think of more I'll add to the thread.
Also @ me at your peril. I'm on staycation and gloriously happy mixing music, practicing rudiments, woodworking in the garage and wandering around in the Louisiana heat with my dog. Unlikely i'll be monitoring the mentions. 
