Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Yale Law & Policy Review
Publication Date
Spring 2020
ISSN
0740-8048
Page Number
218
Keywords
progressive prosecution, criminal justice reform
Disciplines
Criminal Law | Law | Law and Society
Abstract
"Progressive prosecutors" are taking over District Attorney's Offices across the nation with a mandate to reform the criminal justice system from the inside. Emily Bazelon's new book, Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration, chronicles this potentially transformative moment in American criminal justice.
This Essay highlights the importance of Charged to modern criminal justice debates and leverages its concrete framing to offer a generally applicable theory of prosecutor-driven criminal justice reform. The theory seeks to reconcile reformers' newfound embrace of prosecutorial discretion with long-standing worries, both inside and outside the academy, about the dangerous accumulation of prosecutorial power. It also offers the potential to broaden the reform movement's appeal beyond progressive jurisdictions.
Recommended Citation
Jeffrey Bellin,
Defending Progressive Prosecution: A Review of "Charged" by Emily Bazelon, 39 Yale Law & Policy Review. 218
(2020)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1660