Ironies abound as Deputy AG complains about "whole categories of drug crimes ... being ignored and not enforced" by prosecutors

I just had some time today to review this notable speech delivered this past Friday by Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen at the Wake Forest School of Law.  As always, I recommend the speech in full because there is too much in the DAG's remarks for me to reprint and engage them all here.  But, as I read though the speech's laments about the failure to enforce drug laws, I could not help but wonder if the DAG gave any thought to DOJ's own persistent disinclination to prosecute the many thousands of (federally illegal) recreational marijuana businesses that operate openly in nearly a dozen US states.  This thought was among the many ironies I saw as DAG Rosen in this speech praises federal crime fighting efforts while criticizing the work of some local prosecutors. Here are some extended excerpts followed by a bit more commentary:

At the Department of Justice, reducing violent crime is one of our top priorities....  So let me start this discussion about violent crime with this simple observation: To understand what works in combating crime, one need look no further than the highly successful efforts of state and federal law enforcement over recent decades.  In the early 1990s, crime reached an all-time high.  Violent crime and murder rates in particular had steadily increased over the preceding decades. Many major American cities and communities were not safe places to live or work.

In response to this troubling trend, legislatures increased penalties for gun offenders, prosecutors pursued stiff penalties for violent criminals, and the Department of Justice did its part by launching a series of nationwide initiatives to stem the tide of rising crime.  For instance, in 1991, the Department created Project Triggerlock, a highly successful program that vigorously pursued firearms cases by targeting the most-violent offenders.  A decade later, the Department launched Project Safe Neighborhoods or “PSN.”  As a crime reduction strategy, PSN focuses federal and state resources on the most pressing violent crime problems in our communities, and each district develops comprehensive solutions to address them....

After reaching a peak around 1993, crime steadily declined for the next 20-plus years.  Violent crime was cut in half.  A study published in 2009 concluded that PSN successfully reduced violent crime with case studies showing reductions as high as 42 percent in certain locations.

Unfortunately, after decades of improvement, a reversal took place, with stunning increases in violent crime in 2015 and 2016.  Homicides alone increased by more than 20 percent.  Concerned that we were at risk of losing ground, the incoming Trump Administration and the Justice Department snapped into action and returned to tried-and-true strategies for reducing crime.

In his first month in office, President Trump issued a series of executive orders “designed to restore safety in America.”  In response, the Attorney General announced the reinvigoration of Project Safe Neighborhood as a centerpiece of the Administration’s strategy to reduce violent crime.  In October 2017, Attorney General Sessions directed all 93 U.S. Attorneys to implement enhanced violent-crime reduction programs and to reinvigorate partnerships with state, local, and tribal law enforcement.... Since redoubling our efforts in this way, we have increased federal firearm prosecutions by over 40 percent compared to the last two years of the previous administration. The joint state-and-federal efforts have worked, and the objective statistics prove it.

The FBI recently released its annual crime statistics for 2018, and, for the second consecutive year, the number of violent crimes decreased nationwide.  In 2018, the violent crime rate decreased 3.9 percent from 2017, and the rate for nearly every type of violent crime decreased as well....

Unfortunately, a dangerous trend is emerging that threatens to blunt the progress we’ve made in reducing crime.  Despite the obvious successes, a small but increasing number of state and local district attorneys have vowed not to enforce entire categories of core criminal offenses as part of a misguided experiment in social justice reform.  From Philadelphia in the East to Dallas in the middle and Seattle in the West, a curtain of non-enforcement policies has descended on some unfortunate cities and counties.

It’s a problem Attorney General Barr highlighted in a speech to the Fraternal Order of Police in August.  There, he spoke of “the emergence in some of our large cities of District Attorneys that style themselves as ‘social justice’ reformers, who spend their time undercutting the police, letting criminals off the hook, and refusing to enforce the law.”

The radical decriminalization policies these social-reform DAs have publicly announced and implemented are truly shocking when they are made transparent.  Despite a decade of record-level drug overdose fatalities, whole categories of drug crimes, including several distribution offenses, are being ignored and not enforced.  Likewise, criminals who commit theft below certain thresholds, such as below $500, are given a free pass.  In several jurisdictions, reform DAs have effectively decriminalized prostitution, making it more difficult to fight human trafficking.  If those weren’t surprising enough, social-reform DAs have announced that the categories of malicious destruction of property, and shoplifting, will go unprosecuted.  The same with regard to criminal threats.  Even offenders who resist arrest and assault law enforcement officials are skating prosecution under these DAs’ non-enforcement policies.

At the Justice Department, we emphasize working closely with our state and local law enforcement colleagues.  But I am concerned that these social reform DAs are falling down on the job.  A prosecutor’s duty is straightforward — enforce the law fairly and impartially and keep the public safe.  By refusing to prosecute basic offenses, social reform DAs are failing to fulfill that vital obligation.  No society can have justice when stealing has been effectively licensed, open-air drug markets are allowed to flourish, and neither victim nor police officer trust that those who break the law will be held accountable....

Not only will these non-prosecution strategies inevitably make communities less safe, they also undermine our constitutional system of separation of powers.  It doesn’t take a law degree from a fine institution like Wake Forest to understand the principle that the legislative branch writes the law; the judicial branch interprets the law; and the executive branch enforces the law. District attorneys, of course, are part of the executive branch, responsible for enforcing the law. By refusing to prosecute broad swaths of core criminal offenses, social-reform DAs are ignoring duly-enacted laws in favor of their own personal notions of what they think the law should be....

Now, with regard to these DA’s personal policy preferences, let me turn briefly to the issue of prosecutorial discretion. There is no question that prosecutors have discretion to decide what cases to prosecute and how to spend their limited resources.  But these DAs are not making individualized decisions based on the facts and circumstances of particular cases. They are predetermining whole categories of offenses for non-enforcement.  They are effectively legislating through inaction.  And the offenses they are unilaterally striking from the books are not antiquated or rare; they are basic criminal laws directed at maintaining public safety.  These DAs’ decriminalization strategies go far beyond prosecutorial discretion and fly in the face of the fundamental concept that no one part of the government exercises total control of our legal system. If you believe in the rule of law, that is a problem....

Some have argued that recent criminal justice reform legislation like the First Step Act represents a repudiation of historical law enforcement practices.  Not so. There was wide bi-partisan support for the First Step Act.  Among other things, that legislation focuses on reducing recidivism, to help prevent future crimes. The Department of Justice and our Bureau of Prisons have made implementing that legislation a priority, as Attorney General Barr and I have both emphasized.

Let me give you a few illustrations: In addition to sentence reductions that have resulted in the release of more than 4,700 inmates, we have updated policies for inmates to obtain “compassionate release,” and since the Act was signed into law, 107 inmates have received compassionate release, compared to 34 in 2018.  We launched a pilot program that has allowed over 260 elderly or terminally-ill inmates to transition to home confinement.  We have further individualized drug-treatment plans, so about 16,000 inmates are now enrolled in recovery programs.  And to reduce recidivism, we are advancing re-entry programming to help past offenders find work and relaunch their lives.

But here is the key point about these improvements from the First Step Act: It is only because of the success of the law enforcement approaches of the last several decades that we had the opportunity to consider and implement these improvements to the criminal justice system. And a key part of fighting crime and protecting victims is helping to make sure that when these prisoners are released — as many of them will be, after serving their sentences — we give them the best possible chance at not re-offending. It’s about public safety, plain and simple....

Finally, let me address one other aspect of the non-enforcement policy problem.  Some defenders of reform DAs claim that the non-prosecution strategies merely reflect the will of the communities that elected them.  If that were so, one wonders why those communities’ legislators would not simply change the laws to reflect their constituents’ views. Indeed, one reason greater transparency about these non-enforcement policies is warranted is that it is far from clear that the public knows and wants prosecutors to tolerate crimes like burglary and theft without enforcement.

Do you think Americans really want prosecutors who won’t enforce whole categories of laws?  It can be hard to overlook that some of these social reform DAs were elected in low-turnout primaries backed by unusual funding from out-of-state ideological advocates.  But elections are up to voters, so I do not mean to address any individual jurisdiction or any particular DA; my question is what kind of system will we have if our laws are simply to be ignored?  And I am especially focused on the problem that non-enforcement policies present to the goal of continuing to reduce violent crime and make our communities safer.

I find jarring that this speech starts with an emphasis on making the reduction of violent crime a priority and then assails local DAs for giving less attention to non-violent crimes. It seems deeply misguided to say in blanket terms that "non-prosecution strategies inevitably make communities less safe" when the non-prosecution policy involves, say, low-level marijuana offices.  Of course, the biggest irony here is that the federal government for the last decade has been pursuing various "non-prosecution strategies" with respect to state-compliant federal marijuana offenses.  Notably, the range of non-enforcement policies adopted by the feds have obviously not undermined "the goal of continuing to reduce violent crime and make our communities safer."  But apparently, in the view of DAG Rosen, what is good for the (essentially unelected) federal prosecutors in terms marijuana non-enforcement is no good for the (locally elected) state prosecutors.

Adding to the ironies here is DAG Rosen's praise and commitment to the FIRST STEP Act.  I am so very pleased to see DAG Rosen praise the reduction of thousands of federal sentences, the early releases to home confinement, the individualized drug-treatment plans, and other efforts to advance re-entry programming to help past offenders.  But I surmise that this work is in much harmony with what progressive prosecutors are committed to doing: finding alternatives to excessive prison terms, addressing public health problems like addiction outside the criminal justice system, and helping offenders "find work and relaunch their lives."  I also think progressive prosecutors would generally acknowledge that low crime rates help provide "the opportunity to consider and implement these improvements to the criminal justice system."  In other words, I believe progressive prosecutors are concerned about "public safety, plain and simple," but they reasonable believe that they can achieve that end without turning to law enforcement and the prison system to address every societal issue.