Why a new generation of prosecutors could end mass incarceration as we know it. It’s Freethink’s Criminal Justice Week. Subscribe for more videos: https://freeth.ink/subscribe-criminal-justice-week and join the conversation with #FixingJustice.
Emily Bazelon is the author of Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration. In this interview, she describes how the keys to ending mass incarceration could reside in each city’s DA office. Prosecutors have enormous leeway in deciding whether people should be charged with crimes. In the past, movements like the War on Crime and War on Drugs led to things like the Three Strikes law and mandatory minimums, and prosecutors routinely locked people up for smaller offenses. Now a new generation of prosecutors is being elected with the help of active communities who have been harmed by mass incarceration. Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, and Mark Dupree in Kansas City are all district attorneys doing what was once unheard of: promoting alternatives to incarceration, helping people with minor drug convictions expunge their records, and more. Since few people vote in district attorney elections, this trend could quickly go nationwide. Is a new era of criminal justice reform upon us? Let us know what you think in the comments, or tweet us at @freethinkmedia with #FixingJustice.
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