Prosecutors hold a massive criminal justice system position as they are the most influential persons in the system. They are in charge of which charges require cash bail; as they control the plea-bargaining process, they also influence how long defendants will remain in prison. However, over recent years, prosecutors' conduct in judicial sentencing decisions has posed great concern due to the crisis on mass incarceration in America. For that reason, there was a suggestion for prosecutorial reforms though they had barriers to their implementations.
These prosecutorial reforms focus on reducing unnecessary incarceration, promoting fairness, improving the criminal justice system's accountability, and engaging with the community. However, there are challenges to the implementation of these reforms faced by prosecutors. Firstly, some prosecutors viewed involvement with the community to reduce crimes because the trust would be developed between the two entities. This would encourage the community members to report crimes easily and cooperate with law enforcement; however, time limitations were the most transparent problems. Due to their heavy caseloads, they had limited time to engage in their communities. Secondly, communication on the reform-minded priorities is not transmitted to the line prosecutors. "Several prosecutors noted the inconsistency between what the elected suggest and what the line prosecutors perceive, where messages filtered down from the elected either become trapped or altered prior to reaching line prosecutors” (Richardson & Kutateladze 2020). Mid-level managers who act as the principal liaison between the elected’ executive team and the line prosecutors are believed to maintain traditional values and being resistant to change. Their main aim was to hinder the implementation of the new reforms.
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Existing prosecutorial role orientations consequently hinder fairness as a way to reduce the prison population. Prosecutors argue that they are forced to rely on the legislature, which they say is a mess. They are forced to contend with sentence guidelines, often punitive sentences, and mandatory minimum sentences. Furthermore, judges heavily influence punishment outcomes as they are the final authority in the judicial system. They often reject plea deals and assign longer sentences. This makes it hard for incarceration rates to be low and for prosecutors to attain fairness in the system. Prosecutors focus more on “doing the right thing,” and this may also hinder them from understanding the importance of reform-minded priorities. Prosecutors have difficulty in articulating what success means to them. By focusing on “doing the right thing,” many prosecutors were missing the bigger picture to reduce the United States' mass incarceration crisis.
Furthermore, most cases require deep thoughts for the more wide-ranging decision-making process. In the court justice system, each victim and each defendant in each case need to achieve their rightful justice. Prosecutors ought to understand their circumstances inside and out; get to know more about the persons involved to get their job well done as there's always a subtle difference in each case.
The challenges faced by prosecutors on implementing the prosecutorial reforms hinder the crisis on reducing mass incarceration in America. Various forces within individual offices like the judges make it challenging to promote fairness within the criminal justice system. While making strategies that counteract these challenges, prosecutors need to be positive if their main aim is to reduce the prison population.
Reference
Richardson, R., & Kutateladze, B. L. (2020). Tempering expectations: A qualitative study of prosecutorial reform. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency , 0022427820940739.
