America’s criminal justice system is in the throes of a revolution.
From Chicago to Philadelphia and Boston to San Francisco — and now Los Angeles — voters have elected progressive prosecutors committed to undo the “tough-on-crime” strategies that disproportionately penalize the poor and people of color.
They believe the current justice system is more concerned with punishment than rehabilitation, fostering in some courthouses a win-at-all-costs attitude among prosecutors who count their career successes by their number of convictions. The alternative, critics say, is a criminal-friendly system that preys on law-abiding citizens.
Both sides in this revolution concede change is needed, but they differ on the extent. One lightning rod in the national debate is newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who with 10 million constituents has the largest district of any in the nation.
Love him or hate him, many say Cuban-born Gascon, 67, is one to watch in this tug-of-war over American jurisprudence.
“There are many who are looking at Los Angeles as a bellwether,” said Miriam Krinsky, executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, a national network of reform-minded elected prosecutors. “It’s not just the largest (territory), but it’s embracing the newest thinking. Above and beyond (Gascon’s) vision, he has tremendous fortitude with a compass that’s unwavering, and he has a tremendously good heart.”
Krinsky estimates about 70 progressive prosecutors have been elected in the United States. Gascon recognizes that he casts a broad shadow over them.
“It weighs heavily on me,” Gascon said in a recent interview with the Southern California News Group. “While I understand it’s a team effort (nationally), I recognize there’s a lot on my shoulders.”
Competing visions
Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami, one of Gascon’s loudest critics, calls him “the tip of the spear.”
“We handle a lot of cases, and what happens here is going to affect many people in the United States. People need to pay attention to what’s happening here … it is a danger to children, a danger to families and a danger to communities,” said Hatami, who has spent his career advocating for tortured and murdered kids.
Critics like Hatami say Gascon wants to open the jail doors to violent criminals while snubbing victims and their families. Others say Gascon’s strategies are far more complicated.
As he explains them, Gascon is trying to improve public safety, make the system more fair, expand victim services and increase police accountability.
Gascon is informed by his tenure as district attorney of San Francisco, where he also was the police chief. Previously, he served as assistant chief at the Los Angeles Police Department and chief of the Mesa, Arizona, Police Department. During his time as head prosecutor in San Francisco, the property crime rate — mostly auto burglaries — rose by 37%, a fact seized by opponents, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
But published reports say he succeeded in significantly reducing San Francisco’s jail population.
Backlash formed quickly
Barely into his first term in Los Angeles County, Gascon already has been sued by his deputy district attorneys and is the target of a recall movement. The backlash came after Gascon ordered prosecutors not to accompany victims to parole hearings, prohibited the use of certain sentencing enhancements, eliminated cash bail for nonviolent crimes and issued a policy not to seek the death penalty on new cases.
Within the past several days, Gascon reorganized the office’s Hardcore Gang Unit and renamed it the Community Violence Reduction Division. The effort is aimed at crime prevention and rehabilitation by embedding prosecutors in the neighborhoods they serve and working with community partners.
Gascon and fellow progressives are unaffected by the pushback from those with a more traditional mindset.
“We are a massive group, increasingly in the larger counties,” he said. “That is a threat to people who have made a living out of prison unions and police unions and the money bail industry, people that have fear-mongered and benefited from this for years.”
Trailblazer in Chicago
One of the main challenges to the national progressive movement came in November 2020, when trailblazer Kim Foxx beat two opponents to win her second term as Cook County state’s attorney in Chicago. She had faced heavy criticism for declining to file charges against actor Jussie Smollett for allegedly staging his own beating. She also scraped with unions after she reduced jail incarcerations and advocated police licensing.
Foxx, the first progressive chief prosecutor to win office in 2016, said her comfortable re-election adds credibility to the national movement.
“The question was whether there was a movement or a moment,” Foxx said in an interview. “I think we showed it was a movement and it wasn’t a flash in the pan.”
She added: “My re-election wasn’t a cakewalk. The same police unions and conservative groups were mobilized and I won handily. There is almost universal agreement that our criminal justice system is out of whack, that we have too many people in jails and prisons.”
Philadelphia, San Francisco
The next fight is in Philadelphia, where first-term District Attorney Larry Krasner is battling with challenger Carlos Vega, a longtime prosecutor, in the city’s Democratic primary on May 18. Krasner stormed into office as a radical vowing to repair the system, but now faces rising gun crimes, according to published reports. Krasner still holds sway nationally as the subject of an eight-part docuseries airing on PBS.
Another noteworthy battle is the attempt to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose critics have gathered nearly 10% of the required signatures to qualify for the ballot. Critics blame Boudin for the storm of burglaries in the city, although violent crimes are at the lowest rates since 1975, according to published reports.
Progressives say voters in San Francisco, Los Angeles County and elsewhere knew who they were putting into power, so the recalls will likely not succeed. “They didn’t just fall from the sky into office. The communities put them there,” Krinsky said.
At stake in Philadephia, San Francisco and Los Angeles are key holdings in the fight to remake the nation’s justice system.
‘Destabilizing the criminal justice system’
The more conservative voices say that if Gascon and his ilk are left to their devices, violent criminals, rapists and child molesters will be let loose on the nation’s communities. Public safety will suffer. There will be more attacks on police.
“This environment we’ve created across the country is destabilizing the criminal justice system,” said Patrick Yoes, president of the national Fraternal Order of Police and a retired commander at the St. Charles Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana.
“There is definitely a movement to dehumanize law enforcement. The general population does not agree with the progressive movement. They want law and order,” said Yoes, who noted 68 officers have been shot in the line of duty in the first three months of 2021.
“It seems to me we’re finding ways to encourage lawlessness.” he said. “Someone has got to speak for the victims. … People need to wake up.”
Deputy D.A. Hatami, who is considering a bid for district attorney, said the public can no longer sit on the sidelines.
“Nationally, we’ve come to a crossroads and people will have to decide if it’s important to protect children and communities or feel bad for people who do bad things,” he said. “I think (progressives) like chaos and they want chaos.”
Gascon: ‘Fear sells’
Not so, say the progressives.
“Fear sells,” Gascon said. ”The reason we are where we are is because we have political leaders who sell fear. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of racist language.”
When you remove the fear, said David Menschel, a Portland defense lawyer and activist in the progressive movement, the arguments for shorter prison terms make sense.
“(Progressives) have an alternative model on what public safety looks like. And that alternative model says we may do more harm in incarcerating people for these crimes and making them worse,” Menschel said.
“It’s not the length of the punishment that deters violent crime,” he said. “When we keep people in prison until they are 60, 70, 80, we’re not paying for their punishment. We’re paying for our anger.”
Redirect money to social programs
In California, it costs $81,000 a year to incarcerate each prisoner, with more than three-quarters of that spent on health and security, according to the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. There are about 115,000 prisoners in California state prisons, says the Public Policy Institute of California.
Progressives say instead of warehousing prisoners past 25 years, the money could better be spent on social programs to keep people out of jail. They also explain that instead of sentencing people to life at the front end, they should have an opportunity for parole, allowing the state parole board to decide if the prisoner has been rehabilitated enough to be freed or should remain locked up.
“All of this tough on crime has wrought havoc on American cities. … Communities of color are beginning to flex their political muscle,” said Daniel Medwed, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston who specializes in wrongful convictions. “It’s a recognition that the war on crime hasn’t stopped crime.”
Yet the temptation to mete out harsh punishment seems ingrained in the “American” notion of justice. Even Gascon says he has to fight internally against defaulting to the old ways.
“Even though I’m an outlier for prosecution, I’m still an American.”
Source: Orange County Register
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