Why the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Win Was So Important

Larry Krasner has spent his entire career suing police departments who overstep their constitutional boundaries. He has no prosecutorial experience, and has spent his life defending cases against the state. Under America’s previous “tough on crime” stance, a man like this would be unthinkable to serve as the chief prosecutor in America’s 6th largest city—but that’s exactly what happened last night. Krasner beat out a crowded field, and in his victory speech, he laid out his agenda: “If you, like us, believe it’s time to end the death penalty…mass incarceration … cash bail …”

Philadelphia is ground zero for America’s fake tough guy attitude towards crime. Lynne Abraham served as District Attorney from 1991 to 2010, earning the nicknames “America’s Deadliest Prosecutor” and the “Queen of Death” thanks to her blind pursuit of executions in as many cases as she could muster. Of the ten largest cities in the United States, Philadelphia has the highest incarceration rate. The fact that there is most certainly a relation between its high poverty rate, its high crime rate and Philly having the lowest-rated public school system seemingly never occurred to Philly’s overzealous prosecutors. Krasner has changed how we look at Philadelphia’s justice system.

One look at how America disproportionately jails its minorities proves that Jim Crow never left, it just took a different form. Being “tough on crime” is a nice thought, but “crime” isn’t the universal boogeyman that a generation of fearful (white) Baby Boomers made it out to be. “Crime” is a single mother stealing baby formula while her husband sits in prison for a low-level drug offense. “Crime” is a kid selling some weed to pay for food that his drug-addicted parents can’t provide. So much of the “crime” we have decided to get tough on in the last twenty years is something that should not be solved with prisons and executions, but with community outreach and more economic investment in dilapidated areas so people have more job opportunities than standing on a corner all day.

What this country has done with criminal “justice” is the clearest proof that we are hypocrites when it comes to our stated goals. Here are some unassailable stats which paint a picture of a country that is anything but a beacon of freedom.

— We comprise 4.4% of the world’s population, but house 22% of the world’s prisoners.

— About half of our inmates are nonviolent drug offenders.

— Despite the fact that all races sell drugs at the same rate, 3 out of 4 black men in our nation’s capital will serve time behind bars.