Issues

In Houston, the call for criminal justice reform isn't just audible—it's deafening.

In 2020, over 60,000 Houstonians came out in the wake of George Floyd’s death to protest the way Black-Americans and other minorities are treated by police. Karthik was one of them.  Black Texans deserve to see change done so this state will live up to the unkept promise of our Constitution.

Karthik believes in

Accompanying activists, Karthik pushes the DA to investigate deaths in the Harris County Jail

• Pass George Floyd Act, that would ban chokeholds and mandate a duty to intervene by officers if there is usage of excessive force, as well as get rid of qualified immunity

• Shutting down the 5 Texas Juvenile Justice Department prisons and diverting funding from the savings to reimburse the costs for community based services. Currently, children are suffering in inhumane conditions in youth prisons and the Texas Juvenile Justice Department is being investigated by the Department of Justice. 

• Banning For-Profit prisons in Texas

• Raising the age so kids aren't charged as adults

• Working to abolish the school to prison pipeline by introducing restorative justice practices throughout a child's schooling

• Installing and mandating AC in every single carceral facility in this state. The lack of them is inhumane in 100+ degree weather.

• Ending slave labor in Texas prisons and increasing occupational education

• Adequately funding community mental health hospitals, state run psychiatric hospitals, and mental-health public defender programs to stop the consistent unjust deaths in the Harris County Jail and truly invest in communities, while also increasing teeth for the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Mentally ill folks should get help, not be thrust immediately into the criminal justice system

• Using Scandinavian criminal justice frameworks as an example, create a “Race to the Top” type funding program that would incentivize correctional institutions to focus on prioritizing rehabilitation and minimizing recidivism rates and be judged on those rates as a performance output. Our prisons should not just be revolving doors