Sanders voted against the 1991 crime bill stating, “This is not a crime prevention bill. This is a punishment bill, a retribution bill, a vengeance bill.”

Sanders voted in favor of at least one amendment to the 1994 crime bill to allocate 10.5 billion more in grants to states for prison construction. The Sanders campaign has said this was in an effort to “strip out” other language which would have expanded the crimes for which individuals could be sentenced.

Sanders supported the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2014, which would have adjusted federal mandatory sentencing guidelines for a number of crimes in an effort to reduce the size of the current U.S. prison population. Namely, it would have reduced mandatory sentences for drug offenses, would have expanded the ability of non-violent offenders to reduce their sentences, and would have enabled federal prisoners to seek retroactive sentence adjustment under the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.

Sanders would institute a full review of the current sentencing guidelines and end the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine.

Sanders supports removing questions regarding conviction histories from job and other applications.

Sanders would minimize costs for incarcerated individuals by making prison phone calls and other communications free, and would audit the practices of commissaries.

Sanders would ensure that diversion, community supervision, or treatment programs are free.

Sanders would end mandatory sentencing minimums.

Sanders promises to improve law enforcement accountability by banning the use of facial recognition software for policing; conducting a U.S. Attorney General’s investigation whenever someone is killed in police custody; establish a federal no-call policy; mandating criminal liability for civil rights violations resulting from police misconduct; creating federal standards for the use of body cameras; providing grants for cities and states to establish civilian oversight agencies; creating a federal database of police use of deadly force; ending federal programs that provide military equipment to local police forces; rescinding former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ guidance on consent decrees; and revitalizing the use of DOJ investigations, consent decrees, and federal lawsuits to address systemic constitutional violations by police departments.

Sanders would reinstate a federal parole system and end truth-in-sentencing. People serving long sentences will undergo a “second look” process to make sure their sentence is still appropriate.

Sanders would “invigorate and expand” the compassionate release process so that people with disabilities, the sick and elderly are transitioned out of incarceration whenever possible.

Sanders would create an independent clemency board in the White House that would be removed from the Department of Justice.

Sanders would enact a Prisoner Bill of Rights that guarantees ending solitary confinement; access to free medical care in prisons and jails, including professional and evidence-based substance abuse and trauma-informed mental health treatment; incarcerated trans people have access to all the health care they need; access to free educational and vocational training (this includes ending the ban on Pell Grants for all incarcerated people without any exceptions; living wages and safe working conditions, including maximum work hours, for all incarcerated people for their labor; the right to vote while incarcerated; ending prison gerrymandering, ensuring incarcerated people are counted in their communities, not where they are incarcerated; establishment of an Office of Prisoner Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within the Department of Justice to investigate civil rights complaints from incarcerated individuals and provide independent oversight to make sure that prisoners are housed in safe, healthy, environments; protection from sexual abuse and harassment, including mandatory federal prosecution of prison staff who engage in such misconduct; access to their families — including unlimited visits, phone calls, and video calls; and a determination for the most appropriate setting for people with disabilities and safe, accessible conditions for people with disabilities in prisons and jails.

Sanders would bar criminal charges for school-based behavior that would not otherwise be criminal.

Sanders would use Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision to challenge states that have failed to adequately support the voluntary, community-based mental health services that can divert people with mental illness from ending up in the criminal justice system.

Sanders would prevent juveniles from being housed in adult prisons.

Sanders would ban the practice of any law enforcement agency benefiting from civil asset forfeiture.

Sanders would abolish long mandatory minimum sentences and life-without-parole sentences for youth.

Sanders would mandate and fund police officer training on implicit bias, cultural competency, de-escalation, crisis intervention, adolescent development, and interacting with individuals with disabilities.

Sanders would create a "multi-billion dollar Prize Fund" for HIV/AIDS researchers. "Essentially, a company bringing a truly innovative HIV/AIDS treatment to market would receive a cash prize instead of patent protection; the treatment would then be placed in the public domain, allowing generic versions to come onto the market quickly."

Sanders has discussed using a statute in U.S. patent law, which allows the government to override drug patents and license the production of cheap generics if it serves the public interest, to lower costs of new hepatitis C treatments.

Sanders filed the first bill in the Senate in 2015 to end cannabis prohibition.

Sanders has called the War on Drugs, "a costly, destructive, and ineffective" policy

Sanders co-sponsored the 2017 Marijuana Justice Act, which aimed to deschedule marijuana as a Schedule I drug.

Sanders promises to end the War on Drugs.

Sanders would institute a full review of the current sentencing guidelines and end the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine.

Sanders co-sponsored the States' Rights to Medical Marijana Act of 2001, which would have turned marijuana into a Schedule ll substance.

Sanders voted in support of the 2018 SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, which would create treatment and recovery programs and fund laboratories to detect imported synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl.

Sanders co-sponsored the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) of 2016.

Sanders co-sponsored the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act of 2019 which would commit $100 billion over 10 years to funding addiction treatment and harm reduction programs at the local, state, and federal levels.

Sanders would decriminalize possession of buprenorphine.

Sanders co-sponsored the 2016 CARA bill, which in part, aims to increase the availability of naloxone.

Sanders would ensure that first responders carry naloxone to prevent overdoses.