Shifting the Culture.
Dear Friends,
The time for a fresh perspective has come. As the gatekeepers of the criminal legal system, the policies prosecutors put into place and the culture of their offices have an immeasurable impact on the pursuit of justice in their community and the system as a whole.
As a civil rights attorney and the next District Attorney of Westchester County, there are a variety of programs and policies I will seek to implement to improve safety for all of us and shift the culture so that the office operates transparently, with integrity, and seeks to directly disrupt the cycle of crime. Please follow below for some of the highlights of this plan:
• Reevaluate performance metrics.1 It is imperative that we shift the paradigm from evaluating the performance of the office based on the numbers of trial wins, guilty pleas, and lengthy sentences. Instead, we should move to adopt metrics like declinations, referrals to diversion programs, and reductions in incarceration, pretrial detention, and recidivism. True reduction in crime is the ultimate goal and our current system is not utilizing the correct metrics to track and achieve it.
• Commit to Data Transparency.2 Make data available to the public so the DA’s Office is held accountable for its performance. This data already exists internally and the People of Westchester should have access to view the real work being done.
• Develop Ongoing Training for DA Staff. Conduct mandatory training on issues like implicit
bias, debunked forensic methods, false confessions, and witness identification.
• Work to Build a Diverse Staff. Increase staff diversity across all levels of seniority and report staff diversity. Research proves that across disciplines, teams that include people from a variety of racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds are more effective and more open to new ideas. Some research shows that increasing the number of minority prosecutors decreases racial sentencing disparities. 3
• Build relationships with the community and those most impacted by the criminal legal system.
• Implement community outreach for ADAs (coaching youth sports, speaking at schools,
and mentoring at-risk kids). Survey and seek input from partner agencies to gauge
community satisfaction and identify concerns. Create programs for prosecutors to meet with formerly incarcerated individuals and their families and with people who have been exonerated. Coordinate ADA visits to prisons and jails where the people they prosecute are held.
There is so much work to be done to improve our community and make safety a reality for every zip code in Westchester County. With your support in the poll booths through Early Voting and Primary Day June 25th we can move forward together.
William Wagstaff Democrat for Westchester County District Attorney.
Paid for by Wagstaff For DA.
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