
Want to end mass incarceration? Stop blindly reelecting your local prosecutor - iamjeff
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8661045/prosecutors-mass-incarceration
======
ravenstine
Democracy as a whole is kind of illusory at this point; the world has grown to
such a scale and the general public so distracted that they often can't make
valid decisions at the polling booth because they are so disconnected from the
issues. In the old days, there were only so many things people had to
understand before they were given a vote and, while those issues were more
impactful on everyday life, they were also less complicated.

Today, the real issues have gotten complicated and nuanced, but the average
human IQ and curiosity level has not caught up. As a result, we are handed
lots of small and barely-relevant decisions to give us that illusion of
choice, both for practical reasons and to shut us up. Local elections
certainly have more impact on one's life, and really aren't hard to
understand, but life is too good for most people to care enough. And, with
people more infantilized than ever, the more they want surrogate mommies and
daddies to make the tough decisions for them, just as their own parents did
for them in childhood. So, when we are handed a piece of paper so we can say
who we want to be our surrogate parents, most of us say "meh" and vote for the
incumbents because, well, we have our smart phones, TV, Starbucks, and gourmet
restaurants, so the current politicians can't be doing that bad, right?

~~~
zanny
This is why direct democracy doesn't work, and it is also why representative
democracy is good.

We have just gotten ourselves into a position where decades of "let the people
decide" has led to your ballot including a dozen citizen choices you do not
care about.

In a saner world, we would be focusing on the representative part of the
republic - why am I directly electing judges, magistrates, and prosecutors
when it would be significantly better to select representatives to make all
these electoral choices for me?

Political parties have become a bad proxy for true representation. People just
start voting party line and the powers that be love that kind of model - it
means great persons cannot rise independent of them, and it means you can
blame the bad on the individuals but the success on the party as a whole. And
party affiliation has always been a horrible proxy for effective leadership.

Instead, we are in a situation where our "representatives" are representing
millions of people individually, while we vote for dozens of esoteric local
elections for things that aren't particularly representative. What we _should_
have is much more localized elections of representatives that then make such
bureaucratic appointment decisions themselves, including for the higher levels
of government beyond them. IE, you can have a representative for every 3
thousand rather than 3 million people, and that representative will join a
local council that appoints the judges, city council, higher level reps, etc.

~~~
someone7x
I would like for there to be a greater discourse on "true representation".
When I look at citizens per representative I absolutely don't believe it's
representative.

I think for congress it's near 600,000 or something now. In LA we have the
county board of supervisors, and that's a group of 5 people running a city of
10,000,000

I find these numbers mind-blowingly unrepresentative, nowhere near "true
representation".

~~~
denzil_correa
One radical proposal would be to pick a representative of the population (Read
: Stratified Sampling) and allow them to vote.

~~~
karmelapple
Juries - chosen at random and vetted from a representative sampling of the
population - choose whether a defendant is guilty or not. It's part of the
civic duty of a US citizen / resident.

Could we make choosing people to choose whether a law should be passed or not
a similar responsibility? "Oh I have to take a week off to go to Washington
DC, there's some law I have to hear testimony on and decide the outcome."

First I've heard of such an idea!

------
_petronius
Growing up in Tennessee, the practice of electing low-level judicial positions
like prosecutors and local judges always seemed like a bad idea. Incompetent
or corrupt judges who apply the law in bad or farcical ways create real harm
and grief[0][1].

Appointments don't prevent incompetence or corruption, but at least it
uncouples local popularity or a lack of voter knowledge from deciding who
ought to have the authority to apply the law. It seems like vetting
experienced lawyers who have a real understanding of not only what the law is,
but also how it should be applied, as happens in the UK[2] can't help but
produce a more legally sound criminal justice system at the very least.

But then, I suppose it depends on your priorities. If holding judges
accountable to the electorate's sense of justice is a higher priority than
holding them accountable to what the law actually is, then this is a fine
system.

[0]: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/12/tennessee-
judg...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/12/tennessee-judge-
messiah-martin) [1]: [http://www.knoxnews.com/news/crime-courts/dcs-campbell-
judge...](http://www.knoxnews.com/news/crime-courts/dcs-campbell-judge-took-
children-from-their-homes-without-legal-
grounds-2a7cd13e-fd20-604d-e053-0100-367048301.html) [2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Appointments_Commissi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Appointments_Commission)

------
electic
The issue here is win rate. Ask any lawyer or prosecutor and they take pride
in that win rate and how many people they have "put away". To get that rate
up, they often go after the poor and people who have committed petty crimes
while ignoring real white-color and blue-collar crime because it is laborious
to prosecute.

If you want to lower the rate, you have to lower the industry incentives for
this type of thinking.

------
rayiner
This is a great article. The DOJ needs to get more involved in keeping state
and local policing in line. The civil rights lawsuit filed against Ferguson,
MO, earlier this year is a good start.

Long-term, getting rid of elected prosecutors and judges at the state level
would be a huge help.

~~~
IpV8
This would mean more power residing in the federal government. Do we really
need more power to be centralized? It seems to me that the fed is already a
bit over their heads. What we need is educated voters and more alternatives to
prison. We also need a more reasonable trial system; how can a low income
defendant hire a decent lawyer? I think that there are things that the fed can
do to better the situation, but butting in to states' jurisdiction is a
slippery slope. The Ferguson suit is a case of 'good because it aligns with my
beliefs'. What if the fed stepped in and did the opposite?

~~~
wfo
According to what I understood from the article, a trial is not even relevant.
Lawyers are barely relevant. A prosecutor threatens someone with a life-
destroying extreme sentence, and they take the short plea term. Confess to
this crime you may have committed or we will destroy you. End of story. No
trial, no long discussion, your lawyer will advise you to take the deal
because facing 30 years in prison for a minor offense is a very real
possibility. The cops will lie in court and be believed, forensic science will
be fabricated, it's just not worth the risk. Federal or state.

~~~
c22
After being in a car accident (my fault) without insurance and in which
another driver broke an arm I was arrested and held in jail for two months at
which point I was given the option of going to court on a charges of "assault
with a deadly weapon" and related miscellany or pleading to "hit and run" and
getting released immediately with time served. This despite the fact that I
was arrested next to my capsized vehicle. The prosecution had completely
fabricated police statements that I said I was trying to kill people. I felt
terrible for causing that accident and the related damages and harm but the
system truly is deeply fucked.

------
falsestprophet
"One of the most baffling aspects of the US criminal justice system is that
incarceration rates continued to rise even after crime began dropping in the
1990s. If crime was dropping, it stands to reason that there should have been
fewer criminals to lock up."

That isn't necessarily correct. Crime rates and prosecution aren't directly
coupled. It could be that we are simply incarcerating a larger proportion of
criminals.

Chicago, for example, had a murder clearance rate of 26% in 2015 compared to
the national average of 64%. There is clearly an opportunity (a need in my
opinion) to incarcerate more murderers especially in Chicago even though the
murder rate has been decreasing in recent years.

------
carsongross
Want people to participate in local elections? Stop federalizing politics.

~~~
deelowe
Local governments severely lack the funding and resources needed to engage
with the community like they should. It's really sad, but by the time the fed
and state take their cut, there's not much left for the city or county.

~~~
sidlls
It's not like the federal and state governments dictate taxation and revenue
(entirely), take their cut and leave the rest with local governments. Local
governments can raise revenue with various kinds of taxes independently of
rates and schedules at the Federal or State level.

The real reason local governments typically lack resources for truly local
needs is that the most vocal locals tend to be NIMBY typea and anti-tax types.

~~~
deelowe
You've clearly never worked in local government if you think it's that easy.

------
ginko
Coming from a country with non-elected state attourneys and compulsory
prosection the American approach to this seems rather weird. Wouldn't electing
prosecutors essentially make them politicians?

~~~
dansze
Afaik the idea behind elected prosecutors and judges is to make sure that the
law represents what the people want, since a prosecutor or judge that fails to
convict when the people want a conviction won't get re-elected.

So yes, they are politicians, and I'm not convinced that's a good thing.

Of course, being north of the border, I'm not exactly versed in American state
politics.

~~~
ginko
But isn't it up to the legislative branch to make/amend laws? Why elect the
judiciary branch, which is only supposed to interpret those laws?

~~~
droopyEyelids
This is actually a big deal in America and a fundamental change in how our
government operates. Your idea is right, but since the 1960s judicial
authority has grown in a way that increases their responsibility to the point
where they're almost legislators themselves.

------
Brendinooo
Voting for a prosecutor or judge is tough to do, speaking from experience. I
tend to rely on outside authorities for this sort of thing - namely, the local
papers' endorsements.

The lack of data mentioned in the article is a big deal.

Another thing that's probably underrated in a lot of districts is the lack of
competition. Where I live, if you're not a Democrat, you don't really get a
relevant primary vote for people on the municipal or county level. The article
notes that "85 percent ran unopposed in general elections", but many of those
might have had a much tougher primary fight, which excludes the other party
and independents.

~~~
ravenstine
Voting for judges is also in conflict with the notion that they are supposed
to be impartial. Maybe we should change the system so that judges aren't
elected by the public, but they can be ousted by the public.

~~~
Brendinooo
I don't know if it's possible to avoid impartiality these days, if it was ever
possible. The Merrick Garland nomination speaks to this.

Recall votes would be just as motivated by politics; they'd just be more
favorable to incumbents.

------
astazangasta
1\. I love how this bilthely leads with, "The electoral process is thoroughly
corrupt, here's George Soros pushing money through the system to pursue his
agenda," and then jumps aboard the train of said agenda with no further
questions asked. Good lord, you want us to participate in THIS? Par for the
course for Vox.

2\. As the article itself makes clear, prosecutors are actors who will respond
to whatever incentives we create for them. The evidence and arguments in THIS
VERY ARTICLE undercut the notion that we should focus on the role of the local
prosecutor, who is basically just a law enforcement officer, and rather focus
on changing the laws to reflect the already-shifted moral substrate.

3\. Why _doesn 't_ Vox ask us to focus on changing the laws? Our only role in
their vision is as fodder - herd voters responding to the signals of a
billionaire-funded campaign to harry local prosecutors (to what end? who
should we elect instead, and why would they act differently?). This, again, is
in line with my (limited) understanding of the Vox perspective - "Trust the
experts to figure it out, just nod and sign your name here." We, the vox
populi, would obviously never be involved in the actual construction or
framing of laws. Just vote.

------
squozzer
85 percent [of prosecutors] ran unopposed in general elections. I would
speculate the remaining 15 percent were assistant running against their boss
-- which even in America, is a huge career gamble.

------
rdtsc
> Over the past few days, news has trickled out that liberal billionaire
> George Soros has poured millions of dollars into local election campaigns
> against "tough on crime"

Because of lack of education, awareness, care and time, along with the easy
with each elections (especially local and state) can be manipulated, we are
left at the discretion of benevolent billionaires to fight for us.

I remember first becoming aware of this issues after watching Hot Coffee
documentary. There is a large part there around how corporate interests can
easily manipulate state Judicial branches -- by sponsoring judges which are
more favorable to them (in that case it was capping maximum damages people
could win during corporate settlements on appeal, and yes, lawyers knew to
always appeal).

> But that's not the case in much of the country, where prosecutors don't file
> records that would explain why, for example, they pursued prison time
> instead of probation for a defendant. "We don't really know why prosecutors
> do what they do," Pfaff said.

I think aside from padding the stats and pleasing voters with "tough on
crime", there is a very good reason for prosecutors to prosecute more. It
helps prison guard unions (keeps them employed), private prisons, state
prisons (cheap labor). Each one of those interests can spare a good amount of
cash to sponsor the "right" prosecutor. It is like a long term investment. In
fact, they'd be stupid not to do it.

------
m3rc
The people who really control your day to day life are these people, the local
legislators and executives. Way more people need to vote and vote
intelligently in their local elections

~~~
honkhonkpants
The funny thing is that local and federal politics has been reversed from what
I'd consider the desirable order. I think the federal government should be
filled up with starry-eyed idealists and the local government should be run by
pragmatic conservatives. But for some reason we've got the conservatives in
power at the federal level and at the local level, at least where I live, the
most useless hippies you've ever met.

I don't know how it got to be that way.

------
rch
Open data initiatives might lead to apps that help keep people informed about
local politics.

I'd like to see city council votes when I check the weather in the morning,
for instance.

~~~
moosey
Unfortunately, for a huge percentage of people, it won't be seen if it doesn't
show up on a facebook feed.

------
jomamaxx
Stop electing members of the Judiciary to begin with, and implement a better
system of oversight. Hopefully that has as much local input as national.

------
stcredzero
This is a good reminder. I should check up on my local prosecutor's position
on "innocent until proven guilty." This is not directly enshrined in the US
Constitution. Rather, it is inferred from several places. Apparently, this
leaves some room for local jurisdictions to soften or abrogate this principle
for the sake of enforcement/deterrence.

------
VT_Drew
Want to end mass incarceration? End the war on drugs. The vast majority of
inmates are non-violent drug offenders.

------
spacemanmatt
Stop re-electing any prosecutor.

------
moron4hire
For local elections, I make a point of always voting against the incumbent.

