“Can a prosecutor, even a progressive or reform-minded one, really help dismantle mass incarceration?”

The title of this post is the subtitle of this new piece at Inquest, titled “The Prosecutor Paradox,” authored by Premal Dharia, James Forman, Jr. and Maria Hawilo. The piece starts with this “Editors’ Note”:

This article is excerpted from Dismantling Mass Incarceration.  In the anthology, the essay introduces the section on the role that prosecutors play in mass incarceration — and could potentially play in ending it.  Other sections examine the role of police, public defenders, judges, prisons themselves, and “aftermath,” or the lifetime punishments that continue after release from prison.  The essays referenced here are included in this section of the book.

And the piece substantively begins and ends this way:

In the popular imagination, lawyers argue each side of an issue, while the judge or jury makes the decision.  But when we worked as public defenders, we learned that prosecutors were often the true power brokers:  They chose what charges to bring, how much discovery material to provide, and whether to offer a plea bargain. And we believed they often used their authority for ill, standing as barriers between our clients and justice….

In the Inquest forum discussion for which this essay serves as opening, we invited contributors to reflect on the role that prosecutors might play in ending mass incarceration.  We encouraged them in particular to consider the following questions: Is addressing the role of prosecutors among the most effective means of dismantling mass incarceration?  If so, is electing reform-minded prosecutors a productive path or does it merely entrench and legitimize the system that produced the problem in the first place?  Instead of elevating and supporting progressive prosecutors, should we work to limit the power of prosecutors altogether?  Or can we pursue multiple paths at once?