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September 19, 2019 - Image 4

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The Michigan Daily

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Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Thursday, September 19, 2019

Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Emily Huhman

Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Max Mittleman
Timothy Spurlin

Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White

FINNTAN STORER
Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

MAYA GOLDMAN
Editor in Chief
MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA
AND JOEL DANILEWITZ
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

JOEL WEINER | COLUMN

The rise in reformist prosecutors

O

ver the past couple
years, there has been
a surge of progressive
candidates
running
for,
and
winning,
various
district
attorney
positions.
These
candidates,
from New York to
Los
Angeles,
have
been
advocating
for
policies
that
decriminalize drugs
and ease up on non-
violent
offenders
with
the
intent
to
combat
mass
incarceration.
This
recent
occurrence is a break from
the
traditional
prosecutor
position of being tough on
crime and supporting strict
criminal
penalties.
Larry
Krasner,
the
Philadelphia
district
attorney
and
one
of
the
first
progressive
prosecutors in a major city,
is
widely
considered
to
be at the forefront of this
movement. He ran in 2017 for
the Democratic nomination
in a seven-way race. Despite
earning no major newspaper
endorsements, Krasner still
won the nomination by an
almost
18-percent
margin
and went on to win the
general election by about 50
percentage points.
These elections can be some
of the most impactful on the
local level because DAs have
what is called “prosecutorial
discretion,”
which
gives
them almost absolute power
in charging someone with a
crime. They also structure
plea agreements, which is
how
97
percent
of
cases
end. Policies like mandatory
minimum sentences further
increase prosecutors’ power
because they eliminate judges’
and juries’ say in sentencing,
making the sentence entirely
contingent
on
whichever
charge the DA decides to
press.
This power, however, can
be used to institute reform,
which is where progressive
prosecutors come in. Rachael
Rollins, the district attorney
for Boston and surrounding
municipalities,
ran
on
creating
reformist
policies
like
decriminalizing
drug
possession and retail fraud and
not charging for other low-
level crimes. She established
multiple diversion programs
that do not incarcerate the
defendant, but rather place

them into a rehabilitation
or
treatment
program.
Furthermore, many of these
prosecutors
act
swiftly.
Immediately after
taking
office,
Wesley
Bell,
the
current St. Louis
DA,
fired
the
prosecutor
who
was responsible for
bringing evidence
to the grand jury
that
declined
to
indict the police
officer who shot
and killed Michael Brown
in Ferguson in 2014. He also
has set up a department to
review and investigate past
convictions, which is isolated
from the rest of the office
and reports exclusively to
Bell.
In
announcing
this
initiative, Bell acknowledged
that false convictions happen
frequently, and said his role
as district attorney should
include the responsibility of
reviewing cases to limit such
occurrences.
Not everyone is happy with
such
policies.
The
police
union in Chicago criticized
Kim Foxx, the progressive
Cook County district attorney,
arguing that she should focus
on enforcing laws instead of
trying to change the policies.
Tiffany Cabán ran for the
Democratic
nomination
for
district
attorney
in
the
Queens
borough
of
New York City on a very
progressive campaign, even
announcing that she would
not prosecute sex workers.
She narrowly lost to a slightly
less
progressive
candidate.
Critics of these shifts claim
reformist
measures
will
allow
crime
to
flourish,
arguing
that
prosecutors
should be as tough on crime
as possible and that these
new policies treat criminals
as victims. They also take
issue with district attorneys
refusing to prosecute certain
crimes, saying that it is the
legislature’s job to set laws
and a prosecutor’s job to
enforce them.
This argument is partially
valid. The justice system is
predicated
on
prosecutors
and defense attorneys making
the strongest arguments on
behalf of the people or their
client,
respectively,
which
means
many
high-level
crimes should be enforced to

the fullest extent possible.
That said, a prosecutor’s
duty
is
also
to
protect
the
populace,
and
many
progressives have pointed
out that the current hard-
on-crime philosophy toward
low-level offenses like drug
possession
or
shoplifting
takes
young
people
who
have
made
mistakes
and
feeds them into a system
that
reinforces
criminal
tendencies.
Rehabilitation
programs, they argue, will
reduce recidivism.
The
recent
rise
in
popularity
for
these
progressive
prosecutors
demonstrates
the
public’s
willingness
to
accept
change. After decades of
policy that penalized young
people — largely people of
color — addressing the need
for
reformist
prosecutors
has
moved
beyond
the
fringes of the political field.
The movement has reached
Ann Arbor. Eli Savit, an
Ann Arbor native and the
current senior legal counsel
for the city of Detroit, has
announced
his
candidacy
for
the
2020
Democratic
nomination for DA. Savit
is running on progressive
values and decriminalizing
many low-level offenses.
Progressive
reforms
are
moving in the right direction.
If
a
progressive
criminal
justice philosophy becomes
more accepted within the
mainstream political field,
it can change the tendency
of the justice system to turn
low-level
criminals
into
more violent offenders. That
will create a criminal justice
system that more effectively
prevents crime rather than
one that reproduces it.
That
is
something
to
remember
when
we
vote
on our district attorneys,
because having the ability
to choose who controls the
criminal proceedings in our
respective districts requires
us to consider the impact
that person will have on our
communities. At the center
of that analysis should be
the question of whether that
candidate
will
distinguish
between a young adult who
has
made
mistakes
and
someone who is a legitimate
threat to those around them.

Joel Weiner can be reached at

jgweiner@umich.edu.

O

n the Friday preceding
the
University
of
Michigan
football
team’s home game against
Army, the Michigan Marching
Band released a social media
statement
urging
fans
to
refrain from booing during
the
home
band’s
pregame
performance of Army’s fight
song. It was a call for fans to
not only respect the service
that cadets at the U.S. Military
Academy provide to the people
of the United States following
graduation, but also to respect
all U.S. military personnel
they represent.
I
believe
such
personal
and contextual awareness is
foundational to our decision-
making. Such thoughtfulness
leads
to
more
positive
interpersonal
interactions
and
larger-scale
societal
trends.
But
habitually
building this awareness is
particularly challenging for
undergraduates.
With
the
advent of a new semester,
college students are whisked
into a frenzy of career fairs,
applications,
meetings,
housing searches and social
mazes, all while attempting
to keep academics at the
forefront.
The
volume
of
commitment involved in these
activities
leaves
students
with little time and energy
to actively consider personal
state of mind and behavior
in
seemingly
insignificant
situations. However, it is to
our advantage – and to that of
the greater community – for
us to reflect on what we are
doing, how we are feeling and
how our words and actions
contribute to the experiences
of others.
Even
the
most
minor
behaviors can have significant
positive
effects
on
the
experiences of others and
oneself. Take, for instance,
the action of smiling at a
passerby. It seems, perhaps,
quite insignificant — many of
us would much rather keep
staring ahead, focusing on
the music plugged into our
ears. However, even a simple
smile can have significant
consequences. Consider the
final written words of a man
who committed suicide by
leaping
from
the
Golden
Gate Bridge: “I’m going to
walk to the bridge. If one
person smiles at me on the
way, I won’t jump.” Not every
interaction is going to save
somebody’s life, but the power
of small acts of kindness

should not be underestimated.
We feel good when smiled
at by others, when someone
holds the door for us, and
when we are provided respect
and
acknowledgement
by
others.
We can expand this thinking
and consider the cumulative
effects
the
collective
behaviors of a group can exert.
The example of the Army
game provides a powerful
opportunity to examine this.
The decisions of individual
fans to suppress their boos
during the performance of
Army’s fight song resulted in
an overall display of respect
for
U.S.
military
trainees

and
personnel.
Of
course,
there are valid reasons for
which
people
may
have
deliberately chosen to boo,
including
personal
dislike
for
authoritative
military
actions
in
international
affairs. Additionally, perhaps
not everybody who was silent
acted out of respect, some
may have simply been going
with the crowd. However, the
sight of over 100,000 people
acting in a respectful way lent
a gravity to the moment — an
indication that there was a
reason to take the moment
seriously. The theory behind
why the Michigan Marching
Band asked fans to refrain
from booing can be applied by
individuals to similar contexts
in the future. When large
numbers of individuals act on
this kind of learning, greater
social trends in behavior can
shift toward the positive.
Behavioral
decisions
require situational awareness
on
an
individual
level.
A
primary
roadblock
to
improving these decisions is
the effort needed to instigate
habitual behavioral change,
which
poses
a
significant

problem for college students.
This is not an indication
that college students are
lazy — it is, in fact, quite
the
opposite.
With
the
inundation of coursework
and commitments, students
are often focused so directly
on what needs to get done
now that thinking about the
way in which we behave is a
process often left on the back
burner indefinitely. When
there
are
opportunities
to seek momentary refuge
from our commitments, we
naturally try to expend less
mental
energy.
In
those
moments, it may not matter
to us if someone is coming
up behind us after we open
a door for ourselves, for
instance,
and
applying
an understanding of why
we were requested to act
respectfully before a football
game may not be tempting in
the moment.
This
is
where
habit
development
in
these
behaviors
can
play
a
beneficial
role,
and
thankfully, these behaviors
become
less
effortful
as
we continue to do them.
Benjamin Garner, a health
psychologist at Kings College
in the United Kingdom and
others explain in a 2012 study
that once a habit is formed,
it persists “with minimal
effort
or
deliberation.”
As
such,
creating
habits
of respect and situational
awareness makes improving
our interactions with others
a task that does not demand
our concentration.
The ultimate goal is to
promote the idea of a society
that is happier individually
and collectively due to our
willingness to acknowledge
and respect one another while
recognizing
that
certain
groups
deserve
selective
positive attention for what
they do or what they face, like
people from the military. This
does not mean that we all
have to agree on the right way
to act in certain situations;
what is important is that we
are conscious of why we are
making
certain
decisions.
A
commitment
to
these
behaviors is a step toward
ensuring that there will be a
time when football fans do not
need to be reminded to show
respect to those who risk
their lives for our welfare.

Improving our situational awareness and respect

DIPRA DEBNATH | COLUMN

Dipra Debnath can be reached at

dipra@umich.edu.

SOFIA ZERTUCHE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT SOFZER@UMICH.EDU

Even a
simple smile
can have
significant
consequences

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JOEL
WEINER

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