Political Report

“We’re at a watershed moment for criminal justice reform,” Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, said about Measure R and LA’s upcoming DA election.

The reform’s impact will hinge on Virginia’s parole board no longer denying most applications it receives.

California’s DA association responded to a critic in a letter signed by nearly all prosecutors. But this may only exacerbate worries about DAs’ tendency to talk in a single political voice.

Dominic Selvera hopes to “shrink the system” if elected Travis County Attorney. In a Q&A, he explained how he would cut prosecutions, and steer money toward public services “outside of the criminal justice system.”

The death penalty, drug policy, and bail reform are shaping Texas debates, with primaries just weeks away. But across the state, hundreds of local elections are left uncontested.

Boudin just eliminated cash bail and restricted pretrial detention in San Francisco. He also reaffirmed a flawed quest to predict who should be jailed over what they might do.

New York sheriffs are fighting the state’s cuts to pretrial detention. But bail reform can push sheriffs to embrace shrinking jails.

The CDAA has opposed “almost all change that the voters of California had asked us to enact,” San Joaquin County DA Tori Salazar said in a Q&A.

A new law ends prison gerrymandering in legislative redistricting. New Jersey will continue to disenfranchise incarcerated people.

Few Ohio elections feature candidates talking of criminal justice reform, with some notable exceptions such as in Cincinnati. Some activists are pressing ahead through other organizing.

Rossi rules out seeking the death penalty or prosecuting sex work. “Oftentimes justice may mean a restorative outcome. Oftentimes justice may mean never filing a case,” she said in a Q&A.

Two Virginia prosecutors stop charging marijuana possession—mostly. And newly-elected DAs are sworn in as well in California, New York, and Pennsylvania.

“The problem is that LA County has come to a place where they use the most expensive and the most intrusive tools of the criminal justice system to deal with every behavior,” Gascón said in a Q&A.

In a Q&A, Senator William Smith lays out his priorities to encourage decarceration as the new chair of a powerful Maryland committee.

A retrospective on the year that was on criminal justice reform. Seven maps. 16 issues. 50 states.

More than 200,000 people regain their voting rights, and advocates vow further action. “To vote has value to the soul,” a New Jersey advocate said at a signing ceremony.

Some prosecutors speak up for ending disenfranchisement and sending their staff to visit prisons, while a Pennsylvania DA sought to block a release.

We preview the 2020 races for prosecutor in the biggest Illinois counties, starting with the high-stakes election in Cook County (Chicago).

In Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and beyond, next year will bring blockbuster local elections that could overhaul law enforcement and criminal justice.

Nearly 2,300 prosecutors and sheriffs are set to be elected in 2020. This page details which counties are voting, and their filing deadlines and election dates.

A New York bill would abolish felony disenfranchisement. That would mean law enforcement is no longer the arbiter of who gets to vote.

Michigan automatically treats all 17-year olds as adults, but that will soon change with a major new reform. But prosecutors will retain broad discretion.

Two San Francisco-based advocates discuss the organizing that helped Chesa Boudin, and the next steps for mass incarceration and criminal justice reform.

A wave of progressive candidates prevailed in elections for prosecutor, overhauling the politics of criminal justice in Virginia and beyond.

Will 2019 grow the ranks of decarceral officials? The results will shape bail reform, policing and charging practices, ICE cooperation, voting rights, and more.

A candidate for prosecutor in Loudoun County, Virginia responds to attacks on her background and argues that criminal justice reform can help public safety.

In New York and Pennsylvania, some DA elections could slow the surge of homicide prosecutions in the aftermath of an overdose.

ICE cooperation and detention conditions were on the line, but sheriff races struggled for salience and drew bipartisan consensus.

In Fairfax and Chesterfield counties, candidates for prosecutor want to reduce the volume of felony convictions. Reform opponents have coalesced against them.

New York DA candidates starkly disagree on bail and discovery reforms in Queens and three upstate counties, Dutchess, Monroe, and Ulster.

Lisa Middleman is challenging Allegheny County DA Stephen Zappala in November. DAs should be “reducing mass incarceration and creating equity,” she told the Political Report.

Gurbir Grewal terminated existing 287(g) contracts. But immigrants will continue to be treated differently.

New Jersey is holding 11 elections for sheriff in 2019. This page has a masterlist of the candidates who ran.

Three states hold governor’s races this fall. Each will shape the scope and harshness of the criminal legal system, as well as the availability of social services whose existence or absence impacts the resort to incarceration. The Political Report has now reported on the three elections, focusing each time on one issue related to mass […]

The November elections in Mississippi, Kentucky and Virginia could alter the politics of rights restoration and potentially expand the electorate.

Our ongoing series on the role of sheriffs turns to a site of heated political battles: policing powers.

A Maryland prosecutor stops seeking cash bail, Kentucky and Virginia prosecutors limit pot cases, and a Hawaii prosecutor reduces charges for driving offenses.

“They’re trying to send Hispanics to Mexico or Honduras and put Black men in jail,” said one candidate regarding prevailing practices. “The United States is made for everybody.”

New laws signed by Governor Newsom target private prisons, and fines and fees, the power of DAs, and more.

The response lays bare the absurd premise of those who offer a handful of anecdotes as reason enough to oppose a systemic reform.