On Monday, Sept. 21, Chris Rabb, the state representative of Pennsylvania’s 200th district and Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, visited campus for a dialogue on “Government and Criminal Justice.”
The event featured discussion between Rabb and Professor Keith Reeves ’88, followed by an audience Q&A session moderated by Reeves. Rabb covered topics ranging from the historical injustices that pervade the criminal legal system to the specific pieces of legislation he supports to amend it in Pennsylvania and beyond.
The event was organized, on a nonpartisan basis, by Swarthmore’s Pre-Law Society and the student group Youth for Innocence. Founded by Bijan Taheri ’28 in 2020, the group works to overturn wrongful convictions through legal advocacy.
Throughout Rabb’s five terms in the state legislature, he has notably introduced attempts to legislate pre-trial restorative justice reform, end the death penalty in Pennsylvania, and reform felony murder legal code.
Pre-trial restorative justice may take the form of community service, victim-offender mediation, or decision-making counseling. In January of this year, Rabb introduced a bill which would allow judges to make use of restorative justice techniques rather than traditional punitive measures.
While Pennsylvania’s current and most recent governors both issued a moratorium on executions in the state during their tenures, reform has yet to become law. Since 2017, Rabb has introduced five separate bills aimed at repealing the death penalty.
Felony murder, which allowed accomplices in felonies that result in deaths to be charged with murder, was struck down by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in March of this year. As Rabb noted, the code for felony murder punished people with a mandatory life sentence, not for crimes they committed nor intended to commit, but rather for complicity in a felony where a murder took place.
Of particular relevance to Youth for Innocence’s advocacy work, Rabb has also introduced legislation promoting financial compensation for those wrongfully convicted in Pennsylvania. While Pennsylvania is currently one of ten states with no such financial compensation in place, there is a current bill on the legislature’s desk seeking to change that. Its language rings alarm bells for many advocates, though, who are concerned that its language will put compensation out of reach for the very formerly wrongfully convicted individuals it seeks to help.
Rabb Speaks on Reform in the Criminal Legal System
In email correspondence with The Phoenix, Rabb answered questions pertaining to his approach to justice within the legal system.
He noted that crime itself is necessarily defined by those in power, and that “Harm is the thing we should care about. Crime is a legal category, and those two overlap far less than most people assume.”
Some crimes, such as wage theft, are by far more costly than street robbery, yet remain hugely underprosecuted in comparison, Rabb explained. Additionally, Rabb asserted that the criminal legal system itself can’t be understood without the context of vagrancy laws and convict leasing post-abolition that perpetuated existing systems of oppression.
Rabb’s own family history traces back to both a slave-holding signer of the Declaration of Independence and to Philadelphia abolitionists. He returns to that legacy as an example of the historical context and contradiction which remains so inextricable from the modern criminal legal system’s fight for and frequent failure to achieve justice.
When considering the impact of his time in the state legislature and his potential future in Congress, Rabb went on to comment on the nuanced nature of success in public office: “Some of my most important work in Harrisburg won’t show up as a signed bill. It shows up as a question that used to be unthinkable becoming a mainstream debate.”
While recalling colleagues who shy away from criminal legal reform due to fears of appearing “soft on crime,” Rabb, a democratic socialist, emphasized the importance of dialogue on policies diverging from the perceived political norm.
In transitioning to a career in Congress, he would aim to approach criminal legal reform through continued pursuit of specific policy items like those he championed in the state legislature, and additionally through the creation of the ideological infrastructure necessary to put those items on the agenda in the first place. In particular, Rabb emphasized the importance of shifting the philosophy of the criminal legal system from an attitude of reactive punishment to proactive prevention.
As for his visit to Swarthmore, Rabb said he takes the opportunity to learn from students during his visits to college campuses, and to humanize as well as normalize the act of legislating. Repeatedly emphasizing the significance of collective action as opposed to singular moments of triumph, he said, “There’s a line from Ruth Wilson Gilmore I return to often: ‘Freedom is a place we make together.’ That ‘together’ includes them.”
