"The progressive prosecutor movement is great — but without funding public defenders it won't work"

The title of this post is the headline of this new Salon commentary authored by Premal Dharia.  Here are excerpts:

This growing support for public defense funding highlights a glaring missed opportunity: the inclusion of this issue on the policy platforms of the growing number of so-called progressive prosecutors. In counties and cities around the country, campaigning and newly elected prosecutors have highlighted plans to end cash bail, increase diversion programs, stop prosecuting certain drug or minor cases, and stop seeking the death penalty.  These policy changes are all important. But many of them won’t have nearly the impact they could because a critical piece of the infrastructure is missing: resourced public defenders.  If prosecutors truly want to bring about meaningful change, they must make the funding of public defenders a centerpiece their platforms. Indeed, the failure to include indigent defense funding in platforms for progressive change lays bare the failure to envision what is actually needed for change to happen.  Public defenders are essential to implementing the policy changes proposed by so many prosecutors. They are the other half of the adversarial system; for every lever set up by prosecutors, they are necessary for pushing or pulling it....

Public defenders are on the front lines of the devastation wrought by our system of mass criminalization and they are guided by an unwavering dedication to the very people being devastated.  The failure to fund them is part and parcel of the very same culture that allows excessive fines and fees to be imposed on the poor and money bail systems to flourish in courthouses around our country.  It’s time that the people claiming to want reform — including a new wave of prosecutors and hopeful prosecutors around the country — advocate for the resources that are essential to making real change happen.

Via Law http://www.rssmix.com/