Backtracking on Justice

Authors: Jaylah Cosby, Research and Impact Manager; Mona Cadena, Advocacy and Campaigns Director

Executive Summary: This policy brief examines the implications of recent executive orders signed by President Trump. “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,”¹ the revocation of Executive Order 14006, “Reforming Our Incarceration System To Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities,”² and Executive Order 14074, “Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices To Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety,”³ are analyzed.

The latest executive orders signed by President Trump mark a dramatic reversal of efforts to reform the criminal legal system. The restoration of the federal death penalty, the expansion of private prison contracts, and the rollback of law enforcement accountability measures signal a return to punitive policies that have historically failed to improve public safety while exacerbating harm to marginalized communities. These actions prioritize punishment over prevention, criminalization over rehabilitation, and incarceration over investment in real community safety solutions. This policy brief examines these changes, highlighting their potential consequences, and proposes urgent recommendations to counteract their harmful effects.

Policy Takeaways

• Doubling down on the death penalty deepens racial disparities and increases the risk of executing innocent people. Decades of evidence show that capital punishment disproportionately impacts Black and Latino individuals, fails as a deterrent, and is fraught with wrongful convictions.
• Revoking restrictions on private prisons prioritizes profit over justice. Private prisons create financial incentives for increased incarceration and have long been linked to inhumane conditions, labor exploitation, and recidivism.
• Rolling back police accountability measures enables unchecked state violence. Eliminating requirements for body cameras and use-of-force reporting removes basic safeguards against police misconduct and undermines public trust.
• States must step up. In the absence of federal reform, state and local governments must prioritize investments in community-based safety solutions that address the root causes of harm. At the same time, states must resist the pressure to expand the use of the death penalty and other extreme sentences, which have historically failed to deliver justice or improve public safety.⁴

Background: President Trump recently signed the executive order “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,” which emphasizes capital punishment as a deterrent for violent crimes. It mandates the attorney general to pursue the death penalty for federal capital crimes, particularly in cases involving the murder of law enforcement officers or crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. The order also directs the attorney general to assist states in maintaining a sufficient supply of lethal injection drugs and to challenge Supreme Court precedents hindering capital punishment. Additionally, Trump revoked:

• Executive Order 14006, “Reforming Our Incarceration System To Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities,” which previously aimed to phase out federal contracts with private prisons, citing concerns about their role in incentivizing incarceration to perpetuate mass incarceration.
• Executive Order 14074, “Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing, and Criminal Justice Practices To Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety,” which had advanced initiatives like body cameras and published use-of-force data to enhance law enforcement accountability, expand alternatives to incarceration, reentry services, and alternative response models.

Context: These executive orders represent a deliberate effort to reverse key criminal justice reforms enacted in response to the heightened national attention on police violence and systemic racism in 2020. That year, the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor ignited protests and conversations that extended beyond policing to a broader reflection on the prison industrial complex, mass incarceration, and the structural factors that disproportionately criminalize Black and Brown communities. 

In response, the federal government implemented measures to phase out private prison contracts and reinstate pattern-or-practice investigations into law enforcement agencies. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which sought to ban chokeholds, limit no-knock warrants, and reform qualified immunity, was introduced in Congress but ultimately stalled.⁵ Much of the progress made in the wake of 2020 was met with resistance, and now, even the limited reforms that were enacted are being quickly undone.