Does a video in a social media post accurately convey Vice President Kamala Harris' full position by using a clip of her saying "more schools, less jails"? No, that's not true: A transcript of her 2013 speech shows the post snipped away the part where Harris said she agrees in concept that schools are a priority, but that there needs to be swift punishment of crime. Harris said the two were not mutually exclusive and that "build more schools, less jails" is a simplification of a complicated issue.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on Threads on July 22, 2024, under the title "Kamala has an issue with people wanting more Schools and less jails🤔." It began with a video of Harris saying:
Build more schools less jails, build more schools less jails. And we walk around everywhere, build more schools, we protest, build more schools less jails. Put money into education not prisons.
There's a fundamental problem with that approach, in my opinion.
This is what the post looked like on Threads at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken Wed July 24 16:44:23 2024 UTC)
This clip does not show the extent of Harris' views on that position. When she says, "There's a fundamental problem with that approach," the video ends.
However, in the longer footage of her February 2013 speech posted on YouTube by Chicago Ideas Week (archived here), when she was the California attorney general, she said at the 12:14 mark she believed in more schools and less jails theoretically, but also recognized that there needed to be consequences for crimes:
And it's this: I agree with that conceptually but you have not addressed the reason I have three padlocks on my front door. So, part of the discussion about reform of criminal justice policy has to be an acknowledgment that crime does occur and especially when it is violent crime and serious crime there should be a broad consensus that there should be serious and severe and swift consequence to crime, That I think is essential.
Watch her explain her more nuanced position here:
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Kamala Harris can be found here.
