The Missing Voice from the Movement to End Mass Incarceration
With the need for progressive prosecutors at an all-time high, here’s how one prominent DA attempted to turn the criminal justice system on its head.
There’s a new tide in Washington.
With every press conference, congressional hearing, legislative repeal, and White House tweet, evidence of a starkly different Presidential era becomes alarmingly more apparent. And while the lead-up to this crashing wave of transformation will likely be remembered for an election season that divided a nation, others who remain steadfast on bringing about the change Barack Obama placed at the forefront of his administration will recall that 2016 was also the year that seized one of the greatest allies in the battle for criminal justice reform.
Exactly one month prior to 45 taking the podium in New York City to proclaim his victory over projected winner Hillary Clinton, a prominent voice just one borough away was silenced by cancer. On October 9, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson died after announcing just days earlier he would take a leave of absence to take on the health challenge that lay before him.
It was a devastating loss for Brooklyn, but an even greater injury for those fighting on the front lines to reform the criminal justice system. When Thompson took office in January 2014 he did so with the mission to restore the trust of the community in the prosecutor’s office. He fashioned the nation’s third largest district attorney’s office to be a model for doing what was fair and doing what was right. It was this impassioned approach to justice that made him a leader on the subject. It’s also what caught the attention of filmmaker Ava DuVernay, who asked Thompson in early 2016 to participate in 13TH, the Oscar-nominated documentary that has gone on to win a BAFTA Award, Peabody Award, and NAACP Image Award.
“They had identified a progressive prosecutor, based on his results and on his work. That’s what I think propelled Ken to be in the documentary,” Wayne K. Williams, Deputy Chief of Staff for the Brooklyn DA’s office told ESSENCE during a recent conversation. Thompson, as he explained it, “put into action what a lot of folks had as just words, talking points, and rhetoric. He showed by his actions, that you can change the system.”
And change it, he did. His steps towards reform began soon after taking office, looking at low-level marijuana possession arrests occurring in Brooklyn and correlating it with the activities around stop and frisk. He identified a pattern amongst those being charged with misdemeanors. By most accounts they were black and brown men, receiving irreversible tarnishes to their rap sheet mainly due to race — considering all genders, backgrounds and cultures participate in its recreational use but only a select few found themselves with a criminal record for doing so. To address the problem Thompson launched a marijuana policy that committed to letting first time offenders, with little to no previous offenses, go without prosecution. It was a move that came to the dismay of city officials but one that Williams asserts was centered on Thompson’s desire to avoid strapping young men of color with lifetime criminal records for minor possession.
As King County’s first Black district attorney, Thompson felt an obligation to address the growing concerns of the African American community he was elected to serve. In 13TH he poignantly pointed out that “95 percent of the elected prosecutors throughout the United States are White.” It’s a staggering fact with staggering effect. Studies show that Black men are 65 percent more likely to receive mandatory minimums, largely based on recommendations reached through plea-bargaining between prosecutors and court appointed lawyers. Often times neither one of which can effectively hear nor defend the misconduct of a population that for over 400 years were denigrated as criminals and dismantled by a system established to protect. Throughout history this miscarriage of justice led to growing fear between public officials and communities of color. Thompson was all too aware of its consequences.
Reflecting on Thompson’s 2013 campaign, Williams said, “He would share the story about going into the community and telling people that he was running for District Attorney. The folks would scatter. They would first see him, shake his hand, look at his pamphlet, and then once they realized he was campaigning to be District Attorney, they’d run away. He shared a joke with me once saying, ‘I didn’t think there’d even be enough votes out there to participate.’ Because folks would almost objectively turn away from the idea of supporting a prosecutor, regardless of race, regardless of whom the person was. There’s an inherent distrust that was there that he had to work with the community incrementally to overcome.”
The hurdle was a challenging one to mount, but Thompson ran towards it with fervor. As a young man growing up in the Bronx during the 1970s — a time where the borough experienced some of its worse urban decay — he became intimately familiar with the errors, concerns, and unique circumstances that people, especially those of color, could find themselves in. While he lived through it, he saw his mother battle through it as a New York City police officer, giving him a view of the justice system through two different lenses. Williams ensures that during his tenure as DA, Thompson wanted to be tough on crime. He wanted Brooklyn to be a safe place. But his overarching vision for the city was to protect it while being fair. “Every morning when Ken woke up, he would call me and he would say, ‘We’ve got one standard of justice to uphold.’ And that’s how folks have to feel; that they have one criminal justice system not based on their income, not based on their race, not based on their background, or socioeconomics; one criminal justice system.”
With that goal in mind Thompson built on the legacy of Brooklyn’s previously established “Safe Surrender” program, and renamed it “Begin Again”. The initiative helps residents clear outstanding warrants while providing advice and resources for such matters as immigration and child welfare. It also hones in on community by partnering with neighborhood establishments — mostly churches — to give thousands of people throughout the city a safe haven to adjudicate often-frivolous matters like loitering, walking their dog without a leash, or spitting on the sidewalk. This idea of a fresh start also served as the encapsulating theme for what demonstrated Thompson’s commitment to justice — Brooklyn’s Conviction Review Unit.
After his passing an NBC headline read, “Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson’s Death Leaves Exoneration Movement Mourning.” Appropriate, given that during the nearly three years he spent in office, much of his work centered on clearing the names of men and women who were victimized by the system. In total his office reviewed over 100 cases. Under Thompson, 21 individuals who were wrongfully convicted of crimes, saw those convictions vacated in the interest of justice. It’s a model the DA was proud of, and hoped could inspire attorney’s offices around the country, including the city of Chicago.
Thompson played close attention to the state attorneys races throughout the country, including the one that was taking place in the Windy City. Months prior he had met then Cook County State’s Attorney Democratic nominee Kim Foxx and assessed “she was the type of individual major urban cities across America needed to elect into office,” Williams explained. “He was excited to work with her, and alongside of her, in leading the efforts around reforming the criminal justice system.”
He had begun forming a similar partnership with Darcel Clark, the Bronx County District Attorney. Like him she had broken barriers by becoming the first woman to hold the office and the first female district attorney of color in the state of NY. With the help of Manhattan DA, Cyrus Vance Jr., they helped address criminal activities in their respective boroughs. They put safety as a top priority and it was paying off.
In intimate circles Thompson discussed that his passion for the welfare of the public was leading him to consider life beyond the DA’s office. As Williams tells it, “Ken believed that the city could benefit from a leader who understood that New York and the core of it’s success, is ingrained in public safety, and ingrained in fairness, and ingrained in justice. And that, from Wall street to the hood, if there’s no sense of justice, to do the right thing, then the city is just in a responsive position, versus proactively helping the neediest, and expanding upon the successes that the City has already been able to achieve.”
Thompson’s dream of going beyond never actualized. Cancer took that away. It also stripped him of the opportunity to witness the success of a documentary he helped propel to an Academy Award nomination and celebrate New York’s announcement of Raise the Age and the closing of Rikers, two noteworthy criminal justice reforms within his state. But what Brooklyn’s first Black DA did see was evidence of a changed Kings County through his steadfast efforts. And while there’s more work to be done, he did make an undeniable impact on the reform community.
The new tide in Washington may look dismally different from the last, but the fight to end mass incarceration rages on.
Portions of this article originally appeared on Essence.com.
