A closer look
A Prosecutor’s Decarceral Potential
A new Minneapolis-area county attorney won’t end mass incarceration. But she has the potential to cause less harm and promote healing.
progressive prosecutors
8 posts in ‘progressive prosecutors’
campaigns
Meeting the Moment
As a lifelong public defender, I ran to become Santa Clara County’s next district attorney. I didn’t win, but our movement did.
democracy & power
Changing Everything
Beyond electing progressive prosecutors, decarceration requires an ambitious, multifaceted struggle at all levels of governance.
system actors
Busting the Myth
Many progressive prosecutors promised bold change. In Virginia and elsewhere, reformers are realizing that they’re still actors in the same machinery of injustice.
Politics
So Long, Cy
The end of the Cyrus Vance era at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office calls for a reckoning — and opens up opportunities for his successor.
interventions
The True Jailers of Rikers
As demands grow louder for decarcerating and shutting down New York City’s deadly jail complex, judges and prosecutors have escaped accountability. But they’re the ones driving the crisis.
As Told To
A Judge on a Mission
Here's how a former public defender elected to judicial office in New Orleans works to chip away at mass incarceration.
A closer look
Cracking the Black Box
One way to keep prosecutors accountable and check their carceral impulses is by shedding some light on their vast discretion to charge crimes.