...the testicleless mayor of South Bend, Indiana, since 2012. Buttigieg graduated from Harvard College and, on a Rhodes Scholarship, from Pembroke College, Oxford. From 2007 to 2010, he worked at McKinsey and Company, a consulting firm. From 2009 to 2017 Buttigieg served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant and deploying to Afghanistan in 2014. Buttigieg was first elected mayor of South Bend in 2011 and was reelected in 2015. During his second term, he announced he was gay. Buttigieg also campaigned for Indiana state treasurer in 2010 and for chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2017, losing both elections. He is running for the Dem nomination in 2020 on the theory that being mayor of a nondescript medium sized city is qualification to run the country...unveiled his criminal justice plan on Saturday, coinciding with a two-day swing through South Carolina -- a state where he has struggled to gain traction with African American voters -- and his participation in a presidential candidate criminal justice forum.
The South Bend, Indiana, mayor joins several other Democratic presidential contenders by proposing sweeping changes to the criminal justice system in an effort to roll back mass incarceration and address the system's disproportionate impact on black people.
Among the initiatives Buttigieg proposes is to reduce the incarcerated population by 50% at the federal and state levels, a proposal he introduced earlier this year; eliminating mandatory minimum sentences; legalizing marijuana, eliminating incarceration or drug possession offenses, reducing the sentences for other drug offenses; and pushing for changes to policing practices.
Buttigieg has faced criticism for rising violent crime in his home city as well as how its police department handled resident Eric Logan's killing by an officer.