This past week has been historic as Vice President Kamala Harris declared her run for the presidency … the first Black and South Asian woman to do so. As expected, this week, there have been criticisms about her policies, particularly related to criminal justice, dating back to her days as the District Attorney in San Francisco and California Attorney General. Her record is decidedly mixed. On the progressive left, she faces criticism for not being reform oriented. From conservatives, she encounters negativity that she was “soft on crime.” The truth may lie somewhere in the nuanced middle. As someone with experience in a prosecutorial role, I learned that the pursuit of justice is complex and one’s stance may evolve over time.
When I look back on my prosecutorial career, there was an evolution. I began as a traditional prosecutor but pivoted to being committed to reform.
I have also learned that career trajectories are rarely linear. If you had asked me a decade ago, I would never have anticipated that I would be the founder and CEO of Innovative Prosecution Consulting (IPC), speaking to prosecutors about the power of data to combat mass incarceration and mitigate racial disparities in prosecutorial decision-making. But, even though this role could never have been predicted by me, there is no place I would rather be. My evolution was complete when I launched IPC.
Founded after the tragedy of George Floyd’s death and the searing wake-up calls of Ava DuVernay’s 13th documentary and Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” IPC is committed to working with local electeds to build comprehensive data programs that drive and support meaningful criminal justice system reform. Our work with the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Office (VA) and the Cobb County District Attorney Office (GA) shows that data programs can drive positive movement in key metrics and spark meaningful conversations with communities.
To learn more about the transformative power of data-driven reform and the work that IPC does in conjunction with our team of data scientists from American University’s Department of Justice, Law & Criminology, visit: https://www.reformagents.com.
