Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), running against Republican J.D. Vance for Ohio’s open United States Senate seat, vowed to free “all nonviolent criminals” from prison when he ran for president.
In 2019, while vying for his party’s presidential nomination in the Democrat primary, Ryan was asked if he would free half the prison population — roughly a million convicts — and responded by saying he would back freeing convicts considered “nonviolent,” which would include those who possessed child pornography, drug traffickers, those guilty of fraud, and fentanyl dealers.
“I don’t know if it’s by 50 percent or not but we want to get all the nonviolent criminals out, for sure,” Ryan said. “I’m all for it.”
The question was asked to Ryan before he formally committed to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that he would free about a million inmates from jails and prisons across the U.S. if elected president.
At the same time, Ryan said he supports “eliminating” cash bail for suspects accused of crimes — a policy position that would mimic New York’s law that regularly frees from jail suspects accused of violent crimes, and Illinois’s upcoming law that abolishes cash bail altogether, set to free thousands of inmates accused of murder, burglary, and other crimes.
Most recently, Ryan refused again to commit to supporting allowing Ohio criminal court judges to more easily increase bail amounts for criminal suspects.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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