South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott has emerged as a much-in-demand voice on urban social justice as the black conservative stepped up to talk about the need for police body cameras and other reforms after the recent riots in Baltimore,
Roll Call reports.
Scott, 49, who grew up in a single parent home and in poverty, and who turned his life around after dropping out of high school, is using his first-hand experience to urge action among his Hill colleagues, Roll Call said.
He is eager for a hearing on body camera programs and one is expected soon from a Judiciary subcommittee, Roll Call reported.
"Best case scenario coming out of the hearings would be legislation or a grant apparatus that provides some resources for body cameras for those agencies that can ill afford it," Scott told Roll Call last week. "A second thing that I hope comes out of it is a longer, broader conversation about the issue of sustainability in some of the most vulnerable communities in our nation."
Scott enters the discussion with deep concerns after a black man, Walter Scott, was shot by a white police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, the senator's hometown. A video taken by a bystander captured the officer firing multiple rounds as Scott fled.
The senator hopes to use his experience to lead the debate on improving communities and inspiring change.
"I get hopelessness," Scott, who eventually graduated and changed his life, told Roll Call. "I think I also understand some of the solutions that set me free from a hopeless direction."
Last weekend, Scott, South Carolina's first black U.S. senator — and the first African-American elected statewide in South Carolina since Reconstruction — appeared on ABC News' "This Week" to discuss criminal justice reform and also the crucial role education plays in keeping youth out of trouble,
the Washington Times said.
He also discussed the role of faith in keeping him on the right path.
"We have been working for the last several months on different proposals,"
Scott told ABC as he and other senators work on a plan to enact sweeping reforms to the current system.
"I’m very interested and very engaged in studying the patterns of who we incarcerate, why we incarcerate and what we can do about it," he said.
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