Pushing Forward: Prosecution Reform and Racial Equity across Six Counties
By Akhi Johnson, Stephen Roberts, Erin Ross, et al.
The reform prosecution movement faces a critical moment. With the nationwide uptick in violent crime, reform prosecutors face unprecedented attacks: legislation to limit their discretion, politicians seeking to remove them from office, and demands for recall elections. The movement has weathered the storm, but reform prosecutors need continued support in pursuing agendas aligned with the communities that elected them, and the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) is well positioned to help them do so. In 2017, Vera launched the Reshaping Prosecution initiative in response to a wave of reform prosecutors winning office across the country. Reform prosecutors ran campaigns promising a systemic approach to pursuing justice, and Reshaping Prosecution sought to help them transform those promises into measurable policy changes. Vera piloted an engagement with St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner and her office from 2017 to 2019 that contributed to significant gains for the city. Gleaning lessons learned from that pilot, Vera launched a request for proposal process to select new partners. Vera selected each office based on a vetting process that included the district attorney’s demonstrated commitment to pursuing reforms, community support for reform efforts, sufficient staff capacity to work with the Vera team, and adequate data systems to allow an analysis of office practices. After receiving 14 applications, Vera selected six partners: Boulder County, Colorado; Contra Costa County, California; DeKalb County, Georgia; Ingham County, Michigan; Ramsey County, Minnesota; and Suffolk County, Massachusetts. This report describes Vera’s partnerships with each jurisdiction to take a systemic approach to justice by examining racial disparities and collaborating with the offices and their communities to develop solutions. These partnerships faced significant challenges, beginning with the pandemic, which halted work in the early stages; the racial justice movement in the summer of 2020 and its unique impacts on each jurisdiction; and pushback from opponents of change.
New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 40p.