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

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION

Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the 
editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 
words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. 
Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation 
to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.

SUBMIT TO SURVIVORS SPEAK

The Opinion section has created a space in The Michigan 
Daily for first-person accounts of sexual assault and 
its corresponding personal, academic and legal 
implications. Submission information can be found at 
https://tinyurl.com/survivorsspeak2019.

JOEL
WEINER