what a difference a DA makes a virtual forum attracts 106 participants

More than 100 people participated in a webinar on Wednesday that explored the role and responsibilities of district attorneys, focusing primarily on racial disparities and incarceration issues.

“District attorneys can make life-changing decisions for thousands of people across the state, but many people don’t know the full extent of their role or simply that they are an elected position,” Olivia Santoro , webinar presenter and community outreach strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said at the start of the event.

“It’s really important that you all understand what they (district attorneys) do and making that information transparent and accessible was really our goal.”

The webinar, “What a difference a DA makes,” was designed to simultaneously “encourage community dialogue and discussion,” she said, and educate voters about how district attorneys influence legislative branches, executive and local government.

The event was organized by Cape Cod Coalition for Safe Communities, League of Women Voters for Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard Chapters; Martin Luther King Jr.’s Action Team; and the Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

It started with a series of live poll questions for attendees, such as “What percentage of DA races have been uncontested in the last 20 years” across Massachusetts. Although most attendees believed that around 92% of races were uncontested, the 70% correct answer was displayed on screen, followed by a flurry of reactions in the webinar chat section.

“It’s really an incredible number of district attorney races,” Santoro said. “When these races go uncontested, it often means we have no public dialogue about what kind of policies the DA candidates are supporting, and that can contribute to a lack of transparency.”

Santoro brought that percentage closer to home, noting that current Cape Town and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe – who is not running for re-election in 2022 – has had “only one challenger principal over the past 20 years.

In the constituency of Cape Town and the Islands, two candidates have so far announced their candidacy for the post of district attorney: Democrat Robert Galibois and Republican John “Jack” Carey.

hot topics

Following the live poll, Whitney Taylor, political director of American Civil Liberties Massachusetts, reviewed the district attorney’s responsibilities, including charging decisions, bail applications, operating guilty pleas, civil asset forfeiture, police accountability, data collection, sentencing recommendations, immigration and appeals.

Because police accountability is a “hot topic,” she said, Taylor explained that while they work independently, the district attorney is the most senior law enforcement official in the area. district and works closely with police departments and county sheriff’s offices to respond to crimes.

“When you have a bad policeman, who is going to charge him? Who decides whether to prosecute them or not? It’s the district attorney,” Taylor said. “That’s where we run into a lot of problems because your police and your prosecutors work very closely together. It’s not a very good check and balance in the system. The DAs don’t want to upset the police and the police don’t want to not upset the DA.

Taylor shared research data conducted by the Prison Policy Initiative, a research and advocacy group based in Northampton, which showed that Massachusetts had an incarceration rate of 275 people per 100,000, compared to 675 people per 100,000. for the whole of the United States. The U.S. criminal justice system holds nearly 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention centers and 80 prisons nationwide. Indian.

Although Massachusetts looks moderate by national statistics, Taylor pointed out that Britain has an incarceration rate of 129 people per 100,000.

Additionally, the report showed that 74% of those who have been convicted have a prior conviction; 40% of incarcerated people have previous convictions in reformatories; and 1,300 out of 100,000 people in Massachusetts are under the supervision of the criminal justice system. Taylor said the numbers reflect “the severity and depth of the type of incarceration” that occurs in Massachusetts.

“If we don’t look at different kinds of responses and keep handcuffing people and putting them behind bars, we’ll never address the root issues – we’ll never address what’s really going on,” he said. she declared. “We’re going to continue to see these cycles of people being incarcerated and not being productive members of their community.”

Viewers were asked to post their top concerns related to the role of district attorneys, and topics of racial disparities on mandatory minimums, bail, deadlock and misappropriation within the criminal justice system dominated the shows. submissions.

According to Taylor, Governor Charlie Baker’s administration has historically “refused to share racial data” on incarceration rates with organizations, including the Council of State Governments, a national, nonpartisan organization that has scrutinized the system in depth. state criminal law. in 2015.

“The whole report came out in 2017 about what we should be doing in our criminal justice system and Massachusetts didn’t talk about race. And that’s a crime,” she said. This is a huge problem and we here at the ACLU understand how frustrating this must be for the general voter.”

Celebrating racial disparities

Because the data was largely unavailable, Taylor said the American Civil Liberties Union Massachusetts pulled data from “Racial Disparities in the Massachusetts Criminal System,” a report by Harvard University’s Criminal Justice Policy Program and statistics from the Prison Policy Initiative. According to each study, blacks and Latinos make up 17% of Massachusetts’ population, but make up more than 50% of those currently incarcerated.

“Let me remind everyone now. No race or group of any type of people commits crimes on a higher level than another. Yet blacks and Latinos are more often charged with drugs and weapons and routinely end up with harsher sentences than whites,” Taylor said. “The DA is responsible for ensuring that these improvements occur more often in people of color than in people who are white.”

Taylor said blacks and Latinos more often receive mandatory minimum sentences; are more likely to serve longer sentences than whites; receiving longer sentences for the same crimes as whites; and are more likely to be sentenced in Superior Court “where the sentences handed down are longer”.

“Again, we don’t have exact numbers, but that’s what Harvard and the trial courts were able to piece together by looking at everything and figuring out how to compare apples to apples,” she said. declared. “These are decisions made by the police, and then the charging decision is made by the prosecutor.”

Taylor also addressed racial disparities on bail decisions.

“White people get bail at a much higher rate than people of color and their bail is lower,” she said. “Bail is a matter of control. It’s like, you’re not going to get bail, you’re going to sit behind these bars, you’re going to lose your job, you’re going to lose your family, and you’re going to sit there and wait for trial.”

Taylor concluded the webinar with “Community Engagement,” a category encouraging attendees to not only get involved in the district attorney election process, but also to request meetings with the local district attorney, create requests for public documents, creating campaigns around specific issues and monitoring the local press.

Given that district attorneys who plan to run in the November elections are now convening “exploratory committees” and collecting the 300 signatures needed to run for office by May 31, Taylor said, now is the time. for Cape Town citizens to ask candidates questions and demand answers.

“As voters, we have to tell them what our values ​​are,” she said. “It’s wonderful to see how much you all care about the issues and it looks like we have a really good group of constituents to conduct peer education on district attorneys and their power here.”

As the program drew to a close, Karen Boujoukos of the Martin Luther King Jr. Action Team, said the education program couldn’t “be more timely.”

“With the recent announcement of the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s retirement and at least two candidates announcing their intention to run, we thank the ACLU Massachusetts branch for the important educational work they have shared with us. tonight,” Boujoukos said.