This prosecutor helps people avoid jail (employment, legal, attorney, cost)

[Gaylenwoof]

In the TED video linked below, a prosecutor explains how prosecutors can help make our communities safer by not prosecuting some people (especially young adults), but rather, getting help for them. Here is a quick quote from the video:

Yet most prosecutors standing in my space would have arraigned Christopher. They have little appreciation for what we can do. Arraigning Christopher would give him a criminal record, making it harder for him to get a job, setting in motion a cycle that defines the failing criminal justice system today. With a criminal record and without a job, Christopher would be unable to find employment, education or stable housing. Without those protective factors in his life, Christopher would be more likely to commit further, more serious crime. The more contact Christopher had with the criminal justice system, the more likely it would be that he would return again and again and again -- all a tremendous social cost to his children, to his family and to his peers. And, ladies and gentlemen, it is a terrible public safety outcome for the rest of us.

Link to the TED video:
https://www.ted.com/talks/adam_foss_a_prosecutor_s_vision_for_a_better_justi ce_system

And here is the introductory quote to the video:
When a kid commits a crime, the US justice system has a choice: prosecute to the full extent of the law, or take a step back and ask if saddling young people with criminal records is the right thing to do every time. In this searching talk, Adam Foss, a prosecutor with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in Boston, makes his case for a reformed justice system that replaces wrath with opportunity, changing people's lives for the better instead of ruining them.

I suggest watching the video, but you also have the option of clicking on button that shows the transcript.

I'm curious to know if anyone thinks Adam Foss is doing a bad job by not prosecuting in case where he clearly could do so. Should legal training be reformed to make sure that prosecutors are aware of these better options, and encouraged to pursue these other options when it seems to them that it makes sense to do so? (I would imagine especially when young adults are involved.)


BTW: Here is another video that suggests ways to improve the system:
Alice Goffman: How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison

[pknopp]

Our system does need reformed. Most prosecutors seem to believe that their job is to get a conviction as opposed to enforcing everyone's rights and the actual laws.

And yes, in many cases something like this is a better option for the community. Sure, there are some you can not help and you shouldn't get unlimited chances at reforming yourself but the way we do things now by and large isn't working.

[Ferd]

I am a very conservative person. I worked in a jail during college. I believe in and support law enforcement.


I also agree with the above. the best way to insure the creation of criminals is to take a young person who does something stupid in their youth... and making them a felon.


our system is broken.




now for those that are bad actors, we need to be harsh. But for those that are just young and stupid, we need to be strict and disciplined and insure they get over stupid and understand we expect them to be productive members of society.

[Bulldogdad]

Bandaids on the melanoma of society.

[2e1m5a]

A rarity among prosecutors for sure. Good on him...but we need many more on the inside to be speaking out on our injustice system.