Candidates address incarceration, bail, diversion and data transparency
A local prosecutor race near the bottom of the ballot can affect voters more directly than contests for governor, the Senate or the House, Ronald Wright argues in a commentary republished by United Press International from The Conversation. His premise is that, before most Americans reach the voting booth in November, they will already know their choices in the races for governor, the Senate and House of Representatives. Wright, a former prosecutor, a scholar of the criminal courts for over three decades and a professor of criminal law at Wake Forest University, writes that local prosecutors take the lead in responding to crime and hold wide discretion over criminal enforcement.
That discretion starts with charging. The office goes by several names, including district attorney, prosecuting attorney, state’s attorney and county attorney. State lawmakers pass the statutes that define crimes, but local prosecutors decide where to spend limited enforcement dollars, which cases to file and how to work with the police on the crimes that matter most in each county. Prosecutors also choose how to negotiate guilty pleas. Judges select criminal sentences in each case, and prosecutors influence that choice with their own recommended sentence. Wright wrote that no official matters more than the chief prosecutor when it comes to using the resources of the courts and prisons.
Until the early 2010s, party labels did not matter in these local races, because Republicans and Democrats backed similar priorities, and prison was the central tool at every prosecutor’s disposal, Wright wrote. The prosecutor’s job centered on charging as many people as possible with crimes that could result in the longest possible prison term, and convictions for less serious crimes were valuable ways to build a defendant’s criminal record, making it easy to obtain prison sentences in the future. Democratic and Republican candidates figured that voters wanted them to be “tough on crime.” Because the easiest way to send that signal was to press for more prisons, the size and cost of prisons mushroomed for decades, Wright wrote.
Because most prosecutors presented the same basic options to voters, incumbents usually ran unopposed and, even when opposed, beat the challengers in most races. Over the past 10 to 15 years, however, prosecutor candidates have offered voters some real choices. In King County, Washington, voters in 2022 chose a candidate who emphasized prevention and mental health services alongside traditional criminal prosecutions; her opponent had instead promised to file more criminal cases. More traditional prosecutor candidates might continue to focus on prisons in their responses to crime, relying on prisons’ presumed power to incapacitate criminals. That was the campaign strategy of a 2025 challenger in Norfolk, Virginia, who called for a return to heavier prison use after four years of efforts by the incumbent to reduce incarceration. Voters rejected the proposal and returned the incumbent to office.
Bail and jail capacity are another set of choices. Voters today have more power to decide how many jail cells they want to fund and use, Wright wrote, and prosecutor candidates give voters choices on which defendants to hold in the local jail, at public expense, while their charges are pending. Some offices have reduced or eliminated the use of cash bail, without increasing local crime, according to the commentary.
On treatment and diversion, reform-oriented prosecutors such as the district attorney in Milwaukee are depending on less expensive nonprison punishments, including treatment programs for a wider range of crimes, and are reserving prison for more serious violent offenses. Wright wrote that these reordered priorities seem to work as designed, reducing prison use without increasing crime rates. Reform-oriented offices such as the county attorney in Minneapolis might also develop diversion programs that send some defendants into community service programs. Typically, prosecutors offer diversion to defendants under age 18, while some offices, such as the Pima County attorney in Arizona, offer diversion to adults accused of less serious crimes. Some prosecutors, like the district attorney in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, design and lead some of these programs themselves, and often partner with nonprofit groups that promote public safety. Candidates also give voters choices about new approaches to victim-support services and about programs designed to improve the reentry of convicted people into the community.
Transparency offers another basis for comparison. Candidates can commit to routinely releasing data about office operations, as the Democratic candidate did in her successful race for commonwealth attorney in Arlington, Virginia. Wright wrote that such data can allow journalists and researchers to evaluate trends over time, not just information about individual cases. There are many offices — such as Jacksonville, Florida, and Boulder, Colorado — that show their work on data dashboards, and that transparency allows the public to judge, between elections, how well the prosecutor delivers on campaign promises.
Recent political trends show that prosecutor elections are becoming more competitive, with more incumbents facing challengers, Wright wrote. These races are also being driven by politics at the national level, as voters increasingly elect prosecutor candidates from the same party they prefer in national and state offices. In this changing environment, Wright wrote, it is worth voters’ time to explore the expanded options in prosecutor races.
United Press International republished Wright’s article from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license and noted that the views and opinions expressed were solely his.