Everyday Erinyes #124

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Right after I put up a post last Tuesday about an injustice in one of the 57, give or take, main criminal justice systems in the United States, the Huffington Post (not, certainly, as a response to me, but possibly as a response to the publicity the case was getting,) posted its own article about criminal justice reform.

One way criminal justice can be addressed, of course, is through legislation. It was through legislation on Sentencing Reform that Matthew Charles was able to be released before his original sentence was up, ans was able to become a model citizen. But, because legislation itself must be very specific, particularly with definitions, just in order to be enforced, thre was an exception in that law under which Charles fell on a technicality, and when prosecutors appealed his release, the evidence was clear that under that law he should not have been released.

Another way that reform can be felt in criminal justice is through prosecutorial discretion. Unfortunately, some prosecutors just don’t have any discretion. The new judge in the Charles case practically begged the prosecution to review the case again and exercise some discretion, and the prosecution declined. She felt compelled to read into the records in her disposition that the resulting resentencing might be law, but it was certainly not justice.

One reason so many prosecutors just don’t have any discretion is due to the metrics on which prosecutors are traditionally elected (and, possibly, to the fact that they are elected at all. At the Federal level, they aren’t. Below that level, they mostly are.)

For decades, the process by which America chose its district attorneys was simple: Top prosecutors piled up convictions and issued harsh sentences, built reputations as “tough on crime,” and, most of the time, won re-election. When they retired, their assistants often replaced them. And prosecutors almost always ran for re-election unopposed.

Now all that is changing: Voters fed up with a system that has made the U.S. the world’s leading prison state have swept a wave of reform-minded district attorneys into office.

As good as that sounds, the wave is not a huge one. Furthermore, to continue the water metaphor, to make any large and lasting effects, the wave has to be strong enough to override Niagara Falls. The little drops scattered throughout the system won’t have much permanent impact unless they get together.

That is where the organization Fair and Just Prosecution comes in. Founded after the 2016 elections by Miriam Krinsky, herself a former federal prosecutor who left disillusioned after fifteen years, is a bipartisan nonprofit which

trains and connects prosecutors who want to move past an incarceration-based model of justice to one that is more equitable, humane and accountable.

The connecting is particularly important. When you are trying to swim up Niagara Falls, you need support. When you are trying to do something that has never been done before, you need to share with and learn from others trying to do the same thing. The phrase “best practices” is meaningless if there aren’t at least a few people practicing those practices who can show that they in fact work.

Now – here’s how bad it is. There are roughly 2,400 prosecuting attorneys in the United States. Twenty-four of them – just about one per cent – is the base number currectly affiliated with FJP. (There are a few more, but not enough more for the author of the article to rephrase that to “more than thirty.”) But that number can potentially grow every time a reform-minded DA is elected, and more are running this year.

On the other hand, those affiliated include some very high profile prosecutors. Larry Krasner (D) of Philadelphia. Dan Satterberg (R) of Seattle. Beth McCann (D) of Denver. Aramis Ayala (D) of Orlando. Please be sitting down and with no coffee in the mouth when you read the next sentence – Satterberg helped launch a program in 2011 which handles low-level drug and prostitution crimes outside the traditional system which has been successful enough to inspire McCann to investigate bringing it to her city.

Although the prosecutors involved in the organization don’t agree on every issue, they all agree that the criminal justice system is too large, that alternatives to incarceration can be effective and that it’s critical to address the racial disparities of the criminal justice system.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, you may be wondering why I am bringing up such a positive program for you. Well, it’s because I want you to put on your Eumenides hats and support the good people trying to swim up the Falls – heaven knows they need all the help they can get. And you can also hope in spreading knowledge of the FJP and specifically of the good work it is accomplishing. And that, as Krinsky says, “We can’t incarcerate our way out of poverty, mental illness and drug addiction.”

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.