Stop the Machine
CONTEXT
Prosecutors are a primary driver of mass incarceration in Michigan and across the United States, by pushing plea deals and supporting mandatory minimum sentencing. Even when they are innocent, defendants often take these deals. Many want the process to end, to be released from jail, and fear higher sentences post-trial from a system they know is already stacked against them. The Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office has historically used plea deals to increase its conviction rate, a fact that was praised during political campaigns. It is time to end the vicious cycle of the most powerful government officials leveraging the convictions of community members for political capital. Jails and prisons are not mechanisms that support true accountability and healing from harm. Success should be measured through just outcomes, declining prison populations, and reduction of harms in our communities. We recognize that achieving these goals will require comprehensive system transformation and also believe that the prosecutor can take immediate and critical steps at each stage of prosecution to reduce charges, dismiss cases, divert individuals who are arrested out of the system and bolster defense representation, and end reliance on community surveillance practices.
DEMANDS
Ultimate demand: within 4 years, create a foundation to implement community-based transformative justice practices in 100% of cases.
Until all cases are diverted the Prosecutor must:
In charging:
Always seek the lowest charge.
Always decline to apply mandatory minimum charges.
Provide open and early access to all information necessary for a case’s defense (discovery).
In pre-trial detention:
End cash bail.
Shorten the time people spend in jail between arrest and arraignment.
Prevent the use of restrictive pretrial release conditions such as drug testing, electronic monitoring, in-person reporting and participation in program and counseling.
Disallow the use of pretrial risk assessment tools.
In sentencing:
Always decline to seek life sentences without the possibility of parole or virtual life sentences (50 to 100 years).
Implement racial impact statements as part of the presentence investigation report.
Implement community cost benefit analysis statements as part of the presentence investigation report.
In post sentencing:
Drop charges and release people currently being held in jail or monitored for offenses that are no longer being prosecuted.
Clear records of individuals who have convictions for offenses that are no longer being prosecuted.
In use of technology:
Refuse to utilizing surveillance technology and practices (i.e. probation, tether).
The Prosecutor must also advocate for:
Public acknowledgement of the injustice of profiting off of people who are incarcerated.
Public support for those who are incarcerated to be paid a living wage and eliminate charges for basic necessities (food, phone calls, toiletries, menstrual products, etc.).
Public support for ensuring everyone in prison gets the chance to go before the parole board.
State legislation to reduce sentence lengths and eliminate mandatory minimum sentences and habitual “offender” laws.
Support state legislation and administrative policies that seek to liberate the longest serving people: people serving natural life, long indeterminate sentences, and parolable life sentences