![]() ![]() Prosecutors, practicing most often within liberal jurisdictions, have touted their efforts to reduce mass incarceration by focusing prosecution on violent and serious crimes, as opposed to nonviolent offenses. The understanding of this power has led to the rise of the so-called “progressive prosecutor.” Loosely defined, progressive prosecutors recognize the ongoing and systemic exploitation of the courts to fill jails at the expense, rather than in furtherance, of the aims of the criminal justice system. They simply must refuse to prosecute those cases that have little merit and which, if successfully prosecuted, stand to do more harm than good. Using the powerful tool of prosecutorial discretion, these individuals have the power to affect change and, short of changes to the penal code itself, are best able to mete out justice before a case ever makes it to the courtroom. The prosecutor is the lynchpin, ostensibly the first line of defense against petty, unjustified prosecutions that break apart families, send men and women to prison, and spit them out with the tarnish of a criminal record at the end of the process. Though problems associated with racism exist within juries and judges, it is the prosecutor who first decides to bring a case. A reduction in the number of people the criminal justice system touches and in the effect that ruthless prosecution has had on communities of color, requires identifying who within the system has the power to create change.Įnter the prosecutor. Black Americans constituted thirty-four percent of all Americans living under the shadow of conviction, but only thirteen percent of the country’s overall population. In 2014, 2.3 million Black Americans were in the U.S. Not only are minor offenses prosecuted more harshly than the public desires, but there is also demonstrable racism within the criminal justice system that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people of color, particularly Black Americans, ending up behind bars. A majority of voters express a willingness to reform the system, treat non-violent crimes with more leniency, and reserve prison for violent or career criminals. With the acceptance that a problem exists, the public has begun to demand change. In recent years, the idea that criminal prosecutions in the United States are fundamentally unfair has become cemented in the national consciousness. Though the United States makes up about four percent of the world’s population, it accounts for twenty-two percent of the world’s prisoners. America has a mass incarceration problem.
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