In 2011, the United States Supreme Court ruled that California's prisons were so overcrowded they inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on inmates. Harris fought against this ruling and went on to oppose the early release of prisoners in 2014, citing the need for inmate firefighting labor. By the time Harris left her post as a U.S. senator in 2021, the incarceration of black men was still a huge issue, with consistent overcrowding up to 200% overcapacity in some instances. Prisons also lacked adequate medical personnel, and in some instances, up to 54 inmates were sharing one toilet at a time.

According to a report from the American Prospect, Harris spent years fighting orders to reduce prison populations.

"Working in tandem with Gov. Jerry Brown, Harris, and her legal team filed motions that were condemned by judges and legal experts as obstructionist, bad–faith, and nonsensical, at one point even suggesting that the Supreme Court lacked the jurisdiction to order a reduction in California's prison population," the report reads.

As attorney general, Harris launched the California Department of Justice's Division of Recidivism Reduction and Re-Entry, while simultaneously resisting releasing thousands of non-violent inmates with a low risk of recidivism, according to the American Project.

"Observers worried that the behavior of Harris's office had undermined the very ability of federal judges to enforce their legal orders at the state level, pushing the federal court system to the brink of a constitutional crisis. This extreme resistance to a Supreme Court ruling was done to prevent the release of fewer than 5,000 nonviolent offenders, whom multiple courts had cleared as presenting next to no risk of recidivism or threat to public safety," the report states.

Harris's record for wrongful conviction during her time as San Francisco's D.A. was also heavily criticized. A self–described "progressive prosecutor," Harris wrote in her 2019 memoir "The Truths We Hold," that her role was to protect people from the inequality that leads that person to commit crimes.

"The job of a progressive prosecutor is to look out for those who are overlooked, to speak up for those whose voices aren't being heard, to see and address the causes of crime, not just their consequences, and to shine a light on the inequality and unfairness that lead to injustice. It is to recognize that not everyone needs punishment, that what many need, quite obviously, is help," Harris wrote in her memoir.

An African-American man from San Francisco, Jamal Trulove, had a different experience while Harris was a D.A. Trulove was wrongfully convicted, and spent six years of his life in prison.

"I never talked to no detective, no police officer, no D.A., nobody," Trulove said, adding he was simply arrested and charged with murder.

Trulove stated in an interview with Vice Harris was present at his sentencing to "celebrate" his conviction.

"She [Harris] showed up at the two most pivotal times in this first trial, me being convicted, and me being sentenced. She wanted to be present for a celebration of a conviction," Trulove said.

Trulove comes from the Sunnydale projects and stated the police were keeping tabs on himself and his brothers from a young age and were watching others in their neighborhood.

"They already had me labeled because I'm from this community as a potential gang member, potential killer, potential drug dealer. You gotta wake up to the fact that you know, things are set up against us…places like this have been developed for predominantly African-American people to not be able to succeed beyond it," Trulove said.

Trulove said the sentiment in his community about having a black female district attorney, Harris actually is Indian and Jamaican, was one of hope – that Harris would have a "more sympathetic way" of prosecuting people in the black community.

In 2007, Trulove's friend Seu Kuka was killed. After a year, no one had been arrested, and no one had interviewed Trulove.

"The police were still, you know, trying to get a conviction by all means necessary. When I was arrested for it, the community knew I didn't do it, and it was a 'here we go again.' See, this is why we don't trust, you know, law enforcement because it gets to a point where somebody didn't do something, and someone goes to jail for it," Trulove said, adding he never had a history of crime up until that point.

Ultimately Trulove's conviction was overturned, however, Harris has yet to answer for what her office did to an innocent man.

Despite Harris' tough–on–crime rhetoric, a 2014 law passed during Harris' tenure as AG – in which she played a key role – is so unpopular a movement has now begun to have the laws undone, and showed how Harris consistently flip-flopped on her policies.

Proposition 47, also known as the "Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act," reclassified certain non-violent felonies, reduced theft under $950 to a misdemeanor, and converted narcotics possession from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The law has caused a huge amount of crime on California streets, turning downtown San Francisco into a homeless encampment, with open-air drug use and theft becoming a frequent issue. Retailers are barely able to stay afloat after gangs of thieves easily walk out of stores with hundreds of dollars of inventory.

A new ballot initiative is gaining popularity from both Republicans and Democrats, called the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act, or Prop 36. The act would amend Prop 47 and will be included on the ballot this coming November.

If the reform passes, narcotics like cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl will be illegal to possess while carrying a firearm – penalties would also increase for selling deadly quantities, with traffickers potentially facing murder charges if the drug trafficking results in a fatality.

Harris was responsible for writing up the ballot initiative when Prop 47 was first introduced, stating the law change would reduce prison populations, saving the state hundreds of millions of dollars per year – of which the savings would be used to pay for mental health services, K-12 education, and truancy programs.

Drug treatment programs, however, have been underutilized, and petty crime has skyrocketed because there are no consequences for crime. Republicans have accused Harris of misrepresenting the bill.

A Los Angeles–based criminal defense lawyer, Nicole Castronovo, told Fox News Digital in an interview that Harris' past actions as a prosecutor will cause trouble for her in the future.

"She's one of these people who've talked out of both sides of her mouth, and she's going to have trouble with both the left and the right with the stances she's taken over the years," Castronovo told Fox News Digital.

Harris also acknowledged during an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union" in 2019 that a state truancy law she sponsored in 2010 resulted in some parents being arrested and jailed. Prosecutors were given the authority to fine and/or jail a parent for up to one year and a $2,000 fine if their child's school attendance was not satisfactory.

MSNBC reported Sunday that no parents were jailed because of the 2010 law. However, a bill sponsored by Harris in 2014 – Senate Bill 1317 – which was modeled on her previous truancy law for San Francisco, resulted in some parents being jailed. Harris further stated in 2011 that she would be putting parents on notice if their children were not attending school.

Harris' 2020 report card as a U.S. senator was not much better, with GovTrack.US stating her record showed she joined the least amount of bipartisan bills, with only 14% of her support going to bills introduced by a lawmaker not part of the Democratic Party.

Harris also ranked more left than her Democrat colleagues, wrote the fewest laws, got bills out of committee the least often, held the fewest committee positions, and was second most absent during congressional votes.

Sexual abuse victims were also let down by Harris in her prosecutor role after she failed to take action against a Catholic priest who had abused students. Furthermore, Harris went as far as to keep documents regarding clergy sex abuse from lawyers and reporters to protect victim identities, according to CBS.