Comment by nickburns
3 hours ago
Can you elaborate on "basic competency issues", either in the case of Boudin's office and/or other high profile reformist prosecutors? Is that just a polite way of calling them dumb, à la what the kids are calling a 'skill issue' nowadays?
I can speak at length to the tenure of Kim Foxx, Chicago's former high-profile progressive prosecutor. I know some of the issues rhyme with Boudin's term, but San Franciscans can tell his story better than I can.
So, first, no, I feel like I'm saying the opposite of "they're dumb". I don't think either Foxx or Boudin are dumb. I think they're both interesting people with interesting and valuable views.
When I say "basic competence issues", I'm talking about the kinds of things that would go wrong if, like, you or I took over the CCSAO and started managing all the prosecutions in Cook County. For instance: having huge numbers of line prosecutors resign, in part because you totally fuck up the promotion ladder, in part because you shift staffing priorities away from line prosecution and towards internal policy positions, and in part because you fail to sell your immediate-term vision for how you're going to manage the agency.
The superficial way to look at veteran prosecutors resigning is that they're no longer culture fits, which you can look at as a good thing: Boudin and Foxx were hired to change those cultures. But a more practical and immediate way to look at them is that losing veterans puts the screws on your ability to execute the day-to-day of the agency. These prosecutor offices were incredibly strained before people like Boudin and Foxx got there. Which means: there was already an extent to which prosecution decisions were being made not just on justice, safety, or public policy more broadly, but simply on a triage basis.
When you start losing significant numbers of people, you lose the ability to set your own execution priorities; circumstances are making prosecutorial decisions. Foxx tried to put a brave face on it, but nobody was buying it.
What's more frustrating is that Foxx was doing this at the same time as Illinois was rolling out SAFE-T, which ended cash bail in Illinois. I am wholeheartedly in favor of SAFE-T, and I think by-default cash bail is an idiotic system that unnecessarily amplifies the societal cost of law enforcement. But SAFE-T was ultra-controversial in Chicagoland, and Foxx went through all this stuff while people were freaking out daily about catch-and-release. It didn't help that all of this coincided with a huge regional increase in carjackings, the second most important urban index crime after murder. It further didn't help that she was accused of refusing to prosecute juvenile carjackers, and that when confronted by reporters about that, she didn't have a clear denial.
I hope this reads as I intend it to, which is: not ideological, just an assessment about whether someone is prepared to step in and run the office, most of which is boring and just needs to be done correctly.
(I think you can probably look at Krasner as an example of a prosecutor who has avoided these traps.)
We almost certainly have opposing ideological views, but something I said a lot during this era (that I'm happy to see you hinting at) was that if you come into office as a progressive prosecutor without any plan to deal with the people in your office or in law enforcement who aren't on board, then that's really the more immediate failure. You can't just say, "I would have been successful if not for my detractors," because the detractors are a totally predictable obstacle for which you need a plan.
In big systems you can't always just do whatever you want!
I mean, you have basically no control over law enforcement if they decide to arbitrarily slow down arrests or protest your leadership. This has been one of the more consistent issues in American politics and you can see it when the police union doesn't get their way they have a huge tantrum and make things worse for everyone involved.
This isn't really a statement on Boudin did or did not do since I don't have that knowledge but rather from separate experience seeing law enforcement shit itself during other elections.
1 reply →
> prosecution decisions were being made not just on justice, safety, or public policy more broadly, but simply on a triage basis.
> When you start losing significant numbers of people, you lose the ability to set your own execution priorities; circumstances are making prosecutorial decisions. Foxx tried to put a brave face on it, but nobody was buying it.
So, circumstances were making prosecutorial decisions, and the new DA efforts to make fundamental changes did not fix those circumstances, and therefore all changes they made were considered to cause that state.
The office wasn't running. It is not the fault of the new guy that it keeps not running.
If you assume office and things get worse, that is in fact on you! I'm not saying Foxx's predecessor was good; Foxx's predecessor was Anita Alvarez, who was herself a trainwreck in the opposite direction.
A problem I see all the time in these kinds of public policy debates is that people have ideological rooting interests. That isn't going to get you anywhere in a debate about a major metro prosecutor's office. You can't project out "this person was progressive therefore they were good" and you can't do "this person is a law-and-order tough-on-crime prosecutor so they're good" either. It's a very difficult job. Notably: I think you'd have a hard time finding credible people who believe Foxx did a good job in her office.
-- When you start losing significant numbers of people, you lose the ability to set your own execution priorities; circumstances are making prosecutorial decisions.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! God so many people don't "get" this. Engineering leaders that come in and create and exodus of senior leaders, same thing. I started calling it organizational momentum. The speed at which you get things done, goes up as the organization gets to understand itself. A bunch of key people leave and BAM momentum goes to zero and suddenly all the milestones you are missing are putting all the wrong pressure on the org to get moving again.
> the second most important urban index crime after murder
Can you comment on why this is? Is it because it's common? Or so visibly impactful?
Carjacking is a subset of motor vehicle theft, which is an index crime, but carjacking commands more public attention than anything except for murder; this is a vibes-based assertion but I feel like I could back it up easily.
Importantly: the carjacking wave wasn't Foxx's fault (it was in fact Kia's fault). She was in an incredibly tough position --- she also had to deal with Chicagoland police departments that have not covered themselves in glory over the last 20 years. But she didn't rise to the challenge.
I enjoyed this long post about how changing the culture in a DA’s office is bad and should not be attempted
Because that's definitely what I said.