level marijuana cases and supported legislation to legalize marijuana in Illinois. Once marijuana was legalized, her office worked to vacate the convictions of individuals convicted for amounts that were now legal. Foxx’s office also stopped prosecuting people for driving on suspended licenses if their licenses had been suspended for failure to pay tickets. Ninety-seven percent of the people arrested and prosecuted under this law were historically marginalized and low-income communities, said Foxx. Later, Illinois passed a law essentially preventing drivers’ licenses from being suspended for failure to pay tickets.

As an elected leader of a diverse group of constituents, Foxx said it is her responsibility to decide where to focus limited resources. To do so, she considers where she can have the greatest impact for her entire constituency.

ENGAGING SYSTEMS-IMPACTED INDIVIDUALS

Ronald Simpson-Bey, JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA), shared his experience of a wrongful felony conviction, which led to his becoming an advocate for criminal justice system change. Simpson-Bey was convicted of assault and attempt to commit murder in 1985 and sentenced to 30–50 years in prison. The conviction was overturned in 2009 on prosecutorial misconduct, he said, but the appeals process left him in prison for three additional years, until a court ordered that he either receive a new trial or be released. The prosecutor involved in his case had several other cases overturned due to misconduct; all these cases involved the same judge. To help prevent others from having similar experiences, Simpson-Bey became an advocate to change the dynamic between prosecutors and defendants. Prosecutors hold a great deal of power and sometimes abuse that power, he said, so he wanted to help prosecutors realize they could use their power in a more just manner.

Simpson-Bey currently works as Executive Vice President for JLUSA, a national criminal justice reform organization founded and operated by formerly incarcerated and directly impacted people. JLUSA was launched in 2014 with the goal of elevating the voices of people with lived experience in criminal justice reform spaces and availing them of the power and resources necessary to make change.

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¹⁶ For more information, see https://jlusa.org/jcc/

¹⁷ Participants included the American Probation and Parole Association, the National Association for Pretrial Services Agencies, International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Center for Victims of Crime, National Legal Aid and Defenders Association, the National League of Cities, the BJA, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Interstate Commission for Juveniles, National Association of Counties, the Office of Justice and Programs of the U.S. Justice Department, the National Sheriff’s Association, Joyce Foundation, and the National District Attorney’s Association.

risky situation”—they are elected officials and thus must navigate the political realities of their communities. Prosecutors’ work tends to be closely scrutinized, he said. Through tools like the Advancing Racial Equity Implementation Guide, JLUSA works with prosecutors to help them navigate these circumstances, said Simpson-Bey. A workshop participant asked how working with directly impacted individuals can help prosecutors navigate the political context of their work. Simpson-Bey replied that people with lived experience can act as liaisons or bridges between criminal justice actors and the community, serving as credible messengers and valuable resources for elected officials. People with lived experience can also give prosecutors “political cover,” said Simpson-Bey, because they are already connected to communities and have community support.

When criminal justice actors try to engage with people who have lived experience of the criminal legal system, said Simpson-Bey, “tokenism” is a risk. To avoid tokenism, it is critical for criminal justice actors to be intentional from the beginning, engaging people with lived experience in an authentic and meaningful way and bringing them to the decision-making table. People directly impacted by the criminal legal system have insight that other groups do not, and this insight is essential for developing processes, projects, and policies that can make a genuine impact. It is important for people with lived experience, in turn, to realize that their experiences make them subject-matter experts. Recognizing their own value and insisting that others recognize it as well can be beneficial in preventing tokenism, said Simpson-Bey. Furthermore, it is important for people with lived experiences to be involved in decision-making processes from the beginning, rather than simply being brought in at the end of the process. JLUSA is intentional about this process, he said: “We refuse to be tokenized; we refuse to be not at the table.”

In response to a question from a workshop participant about how prosecutors could start engaging with directly impacted people in their communities, Simpson-Bey replied that prosecutors could first identify people with lived experience who also have experienced working to change the criminal legal system. Involvement in the criminal legal system may not be enough, he said, but individuals who have been involved in the system and have also engaged in inner reflection, attended school, learned, and/or been involved in advocacy work bring an invaluable perspective to the table. Simpson-Bey urged prosecutors to reach out to JLUSA for help finding such individuals. Communicating with individuals with lived experience can also humanize defendants and raise awareness of the issues they face. People who commit crimes

have often faced trauma, said Simpson-Bey, and acknowledgment of this reality might improve outcomes.

Prosecutors are not the only actors that can collaborate and engage with individuals with lived experience, said Simpson-Bey. The broader criminal justice ecosystem includes communities, law enforcement, and other groups. Simpson-Bey gave the example of a partnership between JLUSA and One Voice United, a group of corrections officers and officials founded by Andy Potter. Potter worked as a corrections officer in Michigan for 28 years, around the same time as Simpson-Bey’s 27-year incarceration. The two met several years after these experiences and created a program called Courageous Conversations, a one-on-one moderated conversation between Potter and Simpson-Bey that traveled around the country. In 2022, the two entered a formal partnership and conducted a retreat called Barriers to Bridges. The purpose of the retreat, said Simpson-Bey, was to bring corrections officers and formerly incarcerated individuals together to build commonality and dialogue. The retreat showed that people who seem to be on opposite ends of the criminal justice spectrum can work together in partnership for system reform. Prosecutors could do something similar, said Simpson-Bey—they only need to open their doors and have the conversations. Researchers can also benefit from engaging with people with lived experience, he said. Researchers sometimes have preconceived ideas about what they expect to observe; conversations with directly affected individuals can give researchers new ideas and avenues. JLUSA has been partnering with Research Triangle Institute (RTI International) for several years, Simpson-Bey noted.

Creating relationships and partnerships across groups requires patience and persistence, said Simpson-Bey. Building relationships with stakeholders starts with finding commonalities. As a relationship builds organically and authentically, said Simpson-Bey, partners can dive deeper into the issues they want to address together. Without support from both sides, solutions will be unsustainable, he said. It is important for stakeholders to work together, build trust and relationships, and change hearts and minds, said Simpson-Bey.

In closing, Simpson-Bey challenged prosecutors to engage with their communities as often as possible, perhaps by sending their assistant prosecuting attorney into churches, community centers, and other places to hold small, town hall-style meetings with community members. Prosecutors may believe that they are not welcome in these communities, said Simpson-Bey, but people want law and order in their communities. He also challenged

prosecutors to spend the night in a jail or prison. Spending the night behind bars anonymously could “change their attitude a lot about how they approach this work.” Ultimately, said Simpson-Bey, all humans want the same thing—a safe community where their children can grow and be happy.

DeAnna Hoskins, also of JLUSA, later built on Simpson-Bey’s remarks. As Simpson-Bey described, JLUSA trains and invests in individuals directly impacted by the criminal justice system, said Hoskins. These individuals, she said, are not brought to the table only because they were formerly incarcerated, but because they are subject-matter experts.

When Simpson-Bey first came to Hoskins with the idea of partnering with the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, she was surprised, as formerly incarcerated people do not seem like obvious partners for prosecutors. However, two things changed her mind. First, Simpson-Bey shared his story of incarceration and restorative justice. Hoskins thought to herself, “if a man who spent 27 years in prison for prosecutorial misconduct can give grace to prosecutors and sit at a table with them, who are you to walk away from that opportunity?” Second, Hoskins recognized the opportunity for directly impacted people to lead the conversation. At a meeting with stakeholders including sheriffs, victims, parole and probation officers, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and the White House, “everyone was taking notes as if it was a lecture” when the formerly incarcerated individuals discussed the harm the system causes. Everyone wants safe communities, said Hoskins, but the conversation about safety can only be held by humanizing people on all sides. To correct problems in the criminal legal system and ensure safe communities, it is important for every person to be seen as a human who has the right to be a productive member of society.

Steven Raphael asked Hoskins about engaging people with lived experience in research. Although there are students with significant experience inside the criminal justice system, a barrier exists when these students want to pursue research in the field. To access certain types of confidential data, researchers are required undergo a criminal background check; this check often rejects students with criminal backgrounds who might otherwise be invaluable project contributors. Students who would like to pursue Ph.Ds. and have careers in criminal justice research are unsure how to overcome this barrier, said Raphael. An adjudication process can often be used to clear people for access to confidential information, Hoskins replied. The state attorney general usually manages this process, she said; she encouraged people to work at the

state level to develop a fair adjudication process that protects sensitive information but also allows people who are system-impacted to be involved in criminal justice system research. Relatedly, academic institutions can also require background checks and often do not hire people with lived experience in the criminal justice system, said Hoskins. These institutions generate large sums of money to study the system-impacted population but are unwilling to hire people from that population. JLUSA is working with several organizations to change these policies, she noted. While people who were formerly incarcerated are not a protected class under the law, said Hoskins, blanket restrictions on people with criminal convictions result in discrimination against African Americans and Latinos because they are arrested and convicted at higher rates. When considering whether a criminal conviction should prevent a person from being employed in a certain job, it is important to consider the nature of both the conviction and the job. Yale University recently changed its policies in this area and is creating a “support group” for other academic institutions that are willing to consider changing their policies, said Hoskins.

BUILDING COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

Several speakers explored how prosecutors’ offices can engage with communities, and the role of community engagement in shaping programs, policies, and practices. One session, moderated by Biener, focused on collaboration between prosecutors and other actors, highlighting model practices, challenges to collaboration, and the realities of prosecutorial work. Another session, moderated by Matthew Epperson, examined opportunities for prosecutors to build community confidence in the criminal justice system, particularly among historically marginalized communities. Speakers discussed collaborations established to advance programs and policies that aim to reduce incarceration or disparities; the definition of “community” in the context of their work; and their trust-building efforts.

“I sit before you as a survivor of violence,” said Jamila Hodge, Equal Justice USA. She explained that her father received a traumatic brain injury during a robbery, which upended the lives of the entire family. As a result of this trauma, a sibling turned to drugs and ended up incarcerated; Hodge spent 12 years as a prosecutor. This story is not unique, said Hodge, and it is important for people to share the impact of the criminal justice system on their lives without shame. Currently, Hodge leads Equal Justice USA, a national nonprofit that works at the intersection of criminal justice, racial justice, and public health.

for community needs, and to make do with the limited resources available. Racine agreed with Hoskins that one of the best ways to dismantle disparities in the criminal justice system is to humanize people; as a society, “we have done a phenomenal job of dehumanizing” defendants. As part of this effort, said Racine, her office has invited previously incarcerated people to meet with the team, to broaden the team’s perspectives about individuals involved in the criminal justice system. The public defender’s office is another important collaborator, she said. Certain initiatives emerging from the prosecutor’s office require cooperation from defense attorneys as well. In addition, the prosecutor’s office supports the defense’s budget requests for resources such as social workers. Racine noted an unexplored area of research—the impact defense attorneys have on the criminal legal system and on racial disparities, and whether opportunities exist for the defense bar to be proactive in addressing disparities.

Racine told workshop participants about a collaboration between her office and the local Chamber of Commerce. A research project had been conducted on restitution collection rates; the rates in Douglas County were “abysmal,” she noted, and are reflective of national data. When a crime is committed and the victim can substantiate a direct financial impact from the crime, she explained, the defendant can be asked to pay that amount in restitution. This does not cover factors like pain and suffering, she clarified, but only specific items like a broken window or other damaged or missing items. Many people in the criminal justice system are either in poverty or close to poverty, said Racine, so they cannot afford these restitution fees. The DA’s office asked the Chamber of Commerce to partner in soliciting funds from local businesses to start a Goodwill Guardian Program—victims with a substantiated loss can apply to this program for reimbursement, said Racine. Together, they have collected several thousand dollars to directly assist victims for items like eyeglasses, rent, and tires. The more technical aspect of this program, said Racine, is dealing with the writ of fieri facias (fi. fa.), a document victims can file to obtain restitution from the defendant at the termination of the defendant’s sentence. While enforcing the writ of fi. fa. is an option for victims long after the termination of a defendant’s sentence, the funds in the Goodwill Guardian Program satisfy the victim’s need upfront. Victims do not have to wait years for restitution, said Racine, and the funds they receive may help to prevent poverty from pushing a victimized individual to commit criminal acts as a means of survival. Racine’s office has also collaborated with the United Way and the Atlanta Regional

Commission. These collaborations aimed to provide the services and resources needed for defendants participating in a diversion program, to end the cycle of reoffending.

Yolo County is a medium-sized, diverse county in California’s Central Valley, said Jeff Reisig, District Attorney for Yolo County. The population is almost half Hispanic/Latino; there is a large Asian population and smaller Black and Native American populations. Reisig was elected DA in 2006 and despite having already worked in the office for 10 years, he realized about 5 years into his elected position that he felt disconnected from communities of color in his district. In 2012, with the advice of community members, he formed the Multi-Cultural Community Council (MCCC), to serve as an advisory body to the DA.¹⁸ “It is very easy for district attorneys to just sit in their office” and charge cases, said Reisig, but the MCCC ensures that the DA has a link with the community and understands community concerns and priorities. The MCCC consists of more than dozen people from a variety of backgrounds, he said, and they meet monthly to evaluate policies to pursue. Through collaboration between the MCCC, prosecutors, and law enforcement, said Reisig, “some really powerful things have been done when it comes to racial justice.” Hodge noted that programs like the MCCC encourage prosecutors to develop relationships with the people they serve.

Tessa Smith, Yolo County Health and Human Services, currently serves as the chairperson of the MCCC. Her experience as a daughter, sister, mother and employee at Yolo County Health and Human Services, said Smith, informed her perspective when she was invited to join the MCCC six years ago. Her journey with the MCCC began when Reisig presented information to community members about racial disparities and his decision to decline to prosecute a large percentage of cases referred to him. “We all thought that was pretty good,” said Smith, but the group immediately began asking questions: “What kind of cases did you decline to prosecute? Who is making all these arrests that are not being followed through on? Were people arrested? How long were they in jail? Long enough to lose their job? Long enough to break up a family and for children to be removed?” Not long after this meeting, Reisig introduced the group to Measures for Justice (see Chapter 3), to help focus the conversations needed to address these questions. In criminal justice, said Smith, sometimes everything is viewed through a crime-and-punishment lens. When community gets involved, however, “we know that every data point is a human being.”

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¹⁸ For more information, see https://yoloda.org/progressive-programs/multi-cultural-community-council/

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¹⁹ For more information, see https://yoloda.org/commons-data-transparency-portal/

not a monolith.” When people talk about community engagement, they sometimes talk as if there is one message for everybody, she said. While there are messages that cut across communities—like fairness, justice, equity, and safety—different communities have different concerns. If a prosecutor is unable to speak to community concerns authentically, the prosecutor will not be able to develop the relationships necessary to inform and shape policies. Part of being authentic, said Pearson, is acknowledging that the criminal legal system causes harm and the prosecutor’s office plays a role in that harm. Although the efforts may be awkward and difficult, Pearson encouraged prosecutors to speak with communities that have traditionally been marginalized. These groups may push back and may hold the prosecutor accountable for things that happened before their time, she said, but it is important to speak with people who are not automatic allies. Pearson advised newly elected prosecutors and those new to issues of racial disparities to acknowledge that the community has been waiting a long time for someone to listen, and to ask for grace as they attempt to tackle the important issues. Transparency and honesty, said Pearson, can be very powerful for creating a culture of moving forward together and collaborating to create a better community for all.

Building Trust with Communities

It is important to address issues discussed at this workshop with an interdisciplinary lens, said Caroline Nobo, Justice Collaboratory, Yale Law School. The disciplines of law, sciences, humanities, history, social psychology, public health, medicine, and more can all provide valuable perspectives on the conversations around safety and justice. Despite years of working with prosecutors, Nobo does not consider herself a prosecution expert—instead, she considers herself an expert on building vital communities, the importance of legitimate legal authority, and the best practices to build trust.

Nobo observed that most of the discussions around reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system take place within an existing paradigm of deterrence; in other words, compliance and cooperation are compelled through fear of force and punishment. Instead of simply working within that paradigm, Nobo challenged workshop participants to acknowledge alternative ways of calibrating the criminal justice system’s goals. For example, what if the goal was legitimacy in legal authority? When people feel that a legal authority is legitimate, she said, they trust that authority and are just as likely to follow the rules as they are under the deterrence

model. As an added benefit, people are more likely to cooperate as witnesses and participate in other aspects of government, Nobo said. The public’s confidence and trust in the criminal legal system is remaining static or diminishing, she said, so “something is not working here.”

Prosecutors are not trained to building trust with communities, said Nobo, but they need the community’s help to do their job well. The Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School partners with prosecutors’ offices to co-construct policies that build trust using a procedural justice framework. These policies are focused on restoring trust and recalibrating prosecutors’ office goals to include transparency, fairness, and treating people with dignity and respect. In this work, said Nobo, “community” includes everyone—the accused, victims, witnesses, other stakeholders, and those within the prosecutor’s office.

In discussing the diversion programs offered by the DA’s office, Racine said that it can be challenging to get the community to accept diversion programs due to community distrust of the criminal justice system. The community is dubious about accepting help even if it is well intentioned, she said. Racial disparities exist amongst the participants who engage with accountability programs in Douglas County; one of Racine’s data goals is to determine the source of these disparities. Meanwhile, the diversion program’s participants more similarly reflect the community served. This creates an interesting dynamic that is important to explore to fully understand the basis of participant disparities for each program. Causes of disparities could include disparities in referral by the prosecutor’s office or disparities in individuals accepting the offers; defense attorneys could be dissuading people from accepting; or people may just prefer probation over participating in a program that they may not understand or trust. Racine’s group is anticipating these data, which will inform the difficult conversations required to address the disparity issue.

During her time working with the DOJ, Hoskins gained insight on “why Black and Brown people were not enrolling in drug diversion programs.” One issue, she said, involves how the program is presented. When a defendant hears that his felony record will be expunged if he successfully completes a program, he might not want to take the chance of failing the program and returning to square one, facing the original charges. Even the most well-intentioned programs often have consequences for unsuccessful completion. For people who struggle with substance abuse, said Hoskins, relapse is very common during the recovery process, and defendants may not want to risk a relapse that would send them back to the beginning of the

process. Zero tolerance programs are not consistent with research demonstrating the difficulty of getting clean, Hoskins emphasized; if the diversion program is created to address a defendant’s addiction, why would the program penalize the defendant for being an addict, she asked. Hoskins shared a story about an individual who was facing two years in prison but was offered five years of community supervision instead. The individual preferred prison, saying that he would rather do his time and come out free instead of being nervous every day for five years and risk doing something wrong that would put him in prison for two years anyway. When a person is on probation or parole, she noted, the burden of proof that they have done something wrong is very low. It is important for prosecutors to engage with and understand the perspectives of people who have experience in the criminal justice system, said Hoskins. Honesty and transparency are critical when prosecutors are discussing opportunities and alternatives with impacted individuals, Hoskins said.

Engagement with Historically Marginalized Communities

This workshop has included discussion about the lack of trust and faith that marginalized communities have in the criminal justice system, said Epperson. He asked panelists to discuss ways that prosecutors can more successfully engage with these communities. When trying to accomplish a goal, replied Hodge, strategy, execution, and relationship are necessary components. Often, people excel at strategy and execution but are poor at relationships. Equal Justice USA, she said, focuses first and foremost on building relationships. Many prosecutors’ offices have some form of community engagement. However, said Hodge, relationships are built through spending time together, listening, and two-way communication. When Equal Justice USA partners with others, the organization is intentional about starting the process by listening to the community and acknowledging its needs. “We can’t just come in with our own agenda and tell people what to do,” said Hodge, because they are not the experts. No one knows a particular community and its needs better than the people who live there, she said. Hodge added that it is important to consider what the prosecutor’s office can bring to the community. When the community expresses a need, the prosecutor can use their power and influence as an elected official to advocate for the community and elevate community needs, helping the community to meet its needs through partnerships with other officials and service providers. Public safety, she said, is more than the absence of violence—it is necessary for a community to thrive.

individuals, about potential plans. Out of these efforts, a gun diversion program was developed that will target 30–50 individuals who are moderate to high risk. Goodwin emphasized the importance of community engagement to ensure the program was viewed as a community-driven initiative rather than a proposal from the DA’s office, particularly when funding was sought.

Quality Improvement and Accountability

Prosecutors’ offices use data dashboards and community advisory boards to both improve their practice and to stay accountable to their communities, said Epperson. He asked Pearson to discuss these and other tangible approaches to improvement and accountability. Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPI) has partnered with elected prosecutors and their data staff to analyze data and examine trends, said Pearson, but one element was missing: the community. Are collected data relevant to the community? Could other community values also be measured? PPI received funding to create a community engagement blueprint for prosecutors, to help them answer these questions and more, said Pearson. One important element of the blueprint involves listening sessions early in the engagement process. In these sessions, moderated by a neutral party, the community can voice its concerns while representatives from the prosecutor’s office speak minimally. Often, during community meetings, elected officials talk at the community or present resources to them. Instead, in PPI’s model, the prosecutor’s office first listens to the community’s description of its needs, preferred collaboration methods, and ideas for making changes. These meetings can elevate issues that may have been written off as personal problems rather than systemic problems, Pearson noted—when 10 or 20 people raise the same problem at a meeting, it points to a systemic issue.

The next step in engagement, said Pearson, is inviting community representatives to examine the proposed dashboard. It is important to include people from various community groups and particularly those who traditionally “don’t have their hands on the levers of power.” Community representatives can provide feedback on the data dashboard, including whether data are relevant to the community and presented in an understandable format. Next, the prosecutor can establish a community advisory board to discuss priority issues and explore potential solutions, to ensure that new policies are effective and do not cause harm. She gave the example of a prosecutor who wants to implement a diversion program that would cost $1,000 per person, but he suggests dropping the price to $500 to make it more accessible. An advisory board might

tell the prosecutor that $500 is still too expensive and would not improve accessibility. Finally, said Pearson, the prosecutor can work with the advisory board to set up topic-specific boards, dedicated to topics like mental health or reentry into the community—issues based on the needs and interests of the entire community. Overall, the engagement blueprint can help prosecutors engage with their communities, hear from a variety of voices, and receive feedback on potential policy changes, said Pearson.

PROCEDURAL JUSTICE

Procedural justice is a set of evidence-based tools that prosecutors can use to make choices that elevate public trust without risking public safety, Nobo explained. Decades of research in multiple settings demonstrate that procedural justice can affect both the individual and organizational level (e.g., Tyler, 1988; Tyler & Wakslak, 2004). Individuals perceive a system or process as procedurally just when they are treated with dignity and respect and given voice, and when the decision maker is neutral and transparent and conveys trustworthy motives, she explained.²⁰

Nobo relayed her experiences using the procedural justice framework to build trust. One project used “an acute problem diagnosis as a tool to learn a problem-solving technique.” For example, an individual might identify a problem with respect in the prosecutor’s office, such as when the prosecutor does not use the name of the accused. This problem can be used to help the office understand and solve the underlying issue, said Nobo. For one prosecutor’s office, the team conducted internal and external surveys of perceptions of procedural justice. Data from these surveys resulted in changes in practice, such as editing template letters the office had been using for years and installing iPads in waiting rooms so that people could take surveys. Another office, said Nobo, completely redesigned its case screening process to be more transparent and replicable. One lesson learned during this process was that changes will not take hold unless internal office staff also feel respected and heard—that is, they feel a sense of procedural justice.

When surveying public satisfaction regarding their interactions with a prosecutor’s office, Nobo noted the common assumption that a favorable outcome would be the strongest predictor of satisfaction. However, research demonstrates that procedural justice is a stronger predictor of

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²⁰ For more information, see https://law.yale.edu/justice-collaboratory/procedural-justice

satisfaction than outcome favorability. Nobo and her colleagues asked the same questions of prosecutors and of different community members interacting with prosecutors and compared the answers. For example, they could ask prosecutors if they feel they are being transparent and could ask victims if the prosecutors were being transparent. It was impactful for prosecutors to see incidents in which their perceptions did not align with the perceptions of those interacting with them, and some prosecutors changed their practice in response to the identified shortcomings. Nobo’s team also conducted qualitative research through interviews with prosecutors’ office leadership. Leaders were often skeptical of the procedural justice framework’s potential, said Nobo, even when they themselves approached the Justice Collaboratory. However, after seeing the results of the work, leaders often reported that the program had “jump-started” support for changing practices. Leaders also noted that they were pleasantly surprised by the number of community members desiring to engage in conversation, and that trust had increased among office staff.

Michael Rempel agreed with Nobo that perceptions of procedural fairness are important but observed that regardless of prosecutors’ actions, community members may feel a sense of injustice based on negative interactions with police. He asked panelists to describe actions prosecutors could take to address negative perceptions of the police. Recognizing that these negative perceptions are a common topic raised in listening sessions, Pearson suggested that prosecutors could acknowledge past harms and clarify the prosecutorial role in the criminal justice system. Many people do not understand the various roles within the system, so a clear and kind explanation of prosecutors’ roles could be helpful, Pearson said. She added that this approach also avoids attributing blame to the police chief, a fellow actor in the criminal justice system. Goodwin agreed with this approach, noting that her office held a series of meetings with various interest groups and advocates during which prosecutors explained each step of the criminal legal system and their role within the system.

EDUCATING COMMUNITIES ON ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION

Aaron Mallory asked, “How can prosecutors work to educate the public on the need for programs like diversion, treatment, or trauma-informed care?” The process begins with “tackling the narrative,” Hodge replied. Much data exists describing problems and disparities in the criminal justice system, but presenting data alone does not change the narrative. Instead,

presenting both data and stories can help prosecutors to contextualize data in terms of the societal factors that led to the growth of incarceration. There is much focus on changing minds, but less on changing hearts, she said. Hearts are changed when people share stories and personal experiences. Prosecutors could help change hearts by sharing both data and stories illustrating a program’s successes. Inevitably, said Hodge, problems will occur, and those stories will spread. To counter this messaging, “we need to tell the stories of the people who kept their jobs because of bail reform, who kept their children because they didn’t go to prison, who kept their housing because they didn’t have a conviction on their record.”

Educating fellow prosecutors is another important goal, Goodwin added. Prosecutors who have done prosecutorial work for decades are trained to see the system and their goals in a certain way. Conversations about the role that prosecutors can play in changing the system, and about why they might want to do so, are critical. Implementing new programs can be risky, added Goodwin, especially if a program is the first of its kind. Sustainable implementation of policy and practice changes necessitates support from the prosecutor’s office, the community, and other stakeholders—changes associated with one elected prosecutor are unsustainable, Goodwin said.