Roadmap for Reform Prosecutors

Prosecutors play a critical role at every stage of the criminal process, from initial charging decisions to post-conviction sentencing. Every day, prosecutors utilize broad discretion to decide who to charge with what offense as well as recommending the severity of the punishment for the alleged violation. For decades, overzealous prosecution has fueled mass incarceration and the overcriminalization of Black communities and other communities of color.

Today, a new approach is needed to reverse these trends while building meaningful public safety. Through changes in official policy directives and practices, prosecutors can make the communities they serve safer, without causing harm or relying on incarceration and other forms of punitive sanctions as the only forms of justice.

Based on pragmatic and achievable goals, the Roadmap for Reform Prosecutors provides prosecutors across the country with evidence-based recommendations for employing the tools at their disposal to improve prosecutorial outcomes. Some of the practices below are already a legal requirement of prosecutors, but may require additional action to address current failures in implementation and to ensure compliance. Other recommendations encourage community and agency partnerships to increase transparency, accountability and advance reform-minded policies. Together, these recommendations, supported by extensive quantitative research, are necessary to ensure prosecutors promote fair and equal treatment throughout the criminal legal process.

We must also acknowledge that in the years since the rise of the reform prosecutors movement, several reformers have come under attack from right-wing conservatives, and some have been removed from office. We will not give up. We will stand up and fight back.

The Roadmap for Reform Prosecutors mirrors the flow of the criminal legal system and provides specific recommendations for prosecutors to follow at each stage of decision making.