Instead, she found herself Wednesday talking about body cameras on cops and lengthy prison terms. “We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America,” Clinton said in a speech Wednesday in New York, where she announced a plan to equip every street cop with a body camera and roll back the country’s harsh sentencing laws. Now Republican presidential candidates, including Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, are calling for the repeal of mandatory minimum sentences. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), perhaps the most conservative candidate in the race, has been railing against “over-criminalization” and “harsh mandatory minimum sentences.” 
 
 “There has been a seismic shift in criminal justice politics,” said Inimai M. Chettiar, a program director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. “People who once based their campaigns on being the most punitive are now basing their campaigns on having the best ideas to reduce mass incarceration.” 
 
 The steep drop in crime rates over the last several years, Chettiar said, “has allowed people to think about these issues more rationally.” The events in Baltimore and Ferguson have moved that evolution in thinking into the campaign spotlight. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a likely Republican candidate, remained in the shelter of his cautious Twitter stream. Clinton gave advocates hope that won’t be the case this time: On Wednesday she linked the issue to the country’s economic challenges, which will be at the core of her campaign. “Our prayers for restoration of peace in Baltimore,” he posted on Twitter, without elaboration.
– The Baltimore riots and their underlying issues have officially become part of the 2016 race. Hillary Clinton today delivered a major speech in New York in which the takeaway sentiment is her call to end the "era of mass incarceration." As the Los Angeles Times reports, Clinton says it's time for a fundamental overhaul of sentencing, especially for nonviolent offenders. She wants less jail time for them and more treatment and rehab programs, and she thinks other alternative ideas should be investigated for young offenders in particular. She also called for police to wear body cameras in what the New York Times describes as an "unusually impassioned speech." “From Ferguson to Staten Island to Baltimore, the patterns have become unmistakable and undeniable,” said Clinton. “Not only as a mother and grandmother, but as a citizen, a human being, my heart breaks for these young men and their families. We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America.” At Vox, Jonathan Allen notes that Bill Clinton put into place a massive crime bill in 1994 that resulted in more cops on the street and more prisons. His wife's rejection of mass incarceration, then, is "a stunning condemnation of one of the most clear-cut policy failures of Bill Clinton's presidency."