Krasner should be removed from office in the same way as Boudin as should all of the so called progressive prosecutors who are all radical public defenders on steroids.
I am a career prosecutor who left the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office shortly after Krasner took over. I'm glad to see articles like this one but I am discouraged because there is so much more to be said and understood about the decline of the City as it relates to Krasner's actions.
Let's start with this quote from the article:
"On the other hand, the DA’s job is not to cure the root causes of every social ill but to uphold the law and help maintain public order, and while Philadelphia’s problems may not all be of Krasner’s making, the district attorney hasn’t exactly made much of an effort to combat them. "
Two things immediately come to mind. First, the premise that the prevalence of crime is due to the other social problems we have in Philadelphia is not exactly true. The city had actually changed in all ways for the better, and was overall a much safer place than what it was when I first moved here in the eighties. Quality of life and street safety had enormously improved over the years before Krasner assumed office. Part of this progress was due to very smart, innovative policing where specific crime areas, patterns, and habitual offenders were identified by police, prosecutors, and various City agencies, then targeted strategies implemented successfully. The City became a place where you could walk in safety downtown, in South Philly, in Spring Garden, and in other revitalized neighborhoods. Krasner very deliberately nixed those programs---once you accept the iron premise of progressive Equity and Systemic Racism, you will believe with all your heart that the fact that law enforcement in a given area results in higher numbers of minority arrests, your solution is to stop law enforcement in those areas. This ignores the fact that a wildly-disproportionate percentage of crimes are committed by certain minorities in some places. Give 100% credence to the idea, if you will, that the root cause of this crime can all be explained by past and present racism, that still doesn't magically erase the fact that the high rates of minority arrest reflect the proportion of real crimes, actually committed, mostly against other poor minorities, in the here-and-now. Minority crime victims are NOT lying if they report that the person who shot or robbed or raped them was also a minority. Do they not deserve justice? Do they not deserve to live in a neighborhood where they can walk in safety, to be secure in their houses, to have their children safe in local playgrounds?
Secondly, contrary to the quote above, Krasner specifically believes that the job of the District Attorney is to (somehow) cure the root causes of crime. He says so all the time. If I had to summarize his approach I think it would boil down to "A progressive District Attorney should aim to prosecute no minorities if at all possible, and to simultaneously use the resources available to him to work for systemic change in all areas of society until all outcomes for every person are exactly equal."
I live by the rail park mentioned in the opening paragraph. The decline in the city over the last few years is pretty obvious…to anyone with eyes. The senseless killing of Milan Loncar in particular radicalized me against Krasner which made Peruto the first republican I’ve supported in my life. Glad you guys are covering this story. Love anything Tablet related.
Krasner should be removed from office in the same way as Boudin as should all of the so called progressive prosecutors who are all radical public defenders on steroids.
I am a career prosecutor who left the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office shortly after Krasner took over. I'm glad to see articles like this one but I am discouraged because there is so much more to be said and understood about the decline of the City as it relates to Krasner's actions.
Let's start with this quote from the article:
"On the other hand, the DA’s job is not to cure the root causes of every social ill but to uphold the law and help maintain public order, and while Philadelphia’s problems may not all be of Krasner’s making, the district attorney hasn’t exactly made much of an effort to combat them. "
Two things immediately come to mind. First, the premise that the prevalence of crime is due to the other social problems we have in Philadelphia is not exactly true. The city had actually changed in all ways for the better, and was overall a much safer place than what it was when I first moved here in the eighties. Quality of life and street safety had enormously improved over the years before Krasner assumed office. Part of this progress was due to very smart, innovative policing where specific crime areas, patterns, and habitual offenders were identified by police, prosecutors, and various City agencies, then targeted strategies implemented successfully. The City became a place where you could walk in safety downtown, in South Philly, in Spring Garden, and in other revitalized neighborhoods. Krasner very deliberately nixed those programs---once you accept the iron premise of progressive Equity and Systemic Racism, you will believe with all your heart that the fact that law enforcement in a given area results in higher numbers of minority arrests, your solution is to stop law enforcement in those areas. This ignores the fact that a wildly-disproportionate percentage of crimes are committed by certain minorities in some places. Give 100% credence to the idea, if you will, that the root cause of this crime can all be explained by past and present racism, that still doesn't magically erase the fact that the high rates of minority arrest reflect the proportion of real crimes, actually committed, mostly against other poor minorities, in the here-and-now. Minority crime victims are NOT lying if they report that the person who shot or robbed or raped them was also a minority. Do they not deserve justice? Do they not deserve to live in a neighborhood where they can walk in safety, to be secure in their houses, to have their children safe in local playgrounds?
Secondly, contrary to the quote above, Krasner specifically believes that the job of the District Attorney is to (somehow) cure the root causes of crime. He says so all the time. If I had to summarize his approach I think it would boil down to "A progressive District Attorney should aim to prosecute no minorities if at all possible, and to simultaneously use the resources available to him to work for systemic change in all areas of society until all outcomes for every person are exactly equal."
I live by the rail park mentioned in the opening paragraph. The decline in the city over the last few years is pretty obvious…to anyone with eyes. The senseless killing of Milan Loncar in particular radicalized me against Krasner which made Peruto the first republican I’ve supported in my life. Glad you guys are covering this story. Love anything Tablet related.