“I think that the DA's office stepping in on Rikers Island is a moral imperative. It just has to be done,” Cohen said in an interview with Gothamist. “We can't be locking up people in conditions that are so horrific that we have high rates of overdose and suicides and deaths and violent instances and slashings, because that makes us all less safe.”
Cohen has said she would also work to build more trust in the DA’s office, by better supporting victims, assigning a liaison to every neighborhood in the bureau and increasing staff numbers in the unit that investigates potentially wrongful convictions. As someone who has been both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, Cohen said law enforcement and criminal justice reform don’t have to be in tension.
“Our justice system, and law enforcement in general, only works when communities have faith in the system,” she said. “If you don't trust the police officer, if you don't trust the prosecutor, we're going to have sort of a breakdown no matter what.”Thinks bail reform has “worked” but that more money should be spent on programs to support people awaiting trial, like mental health services.
“We need the rights of the defendants, the justice for victims, and we need the innocents to go free,” Katz said in an interview. “That is the balancing equation of a good DA's office.” District attorney is the latest in a long list of elected offices Katz has held over the years, including her time on the state Assembly, the City Council and as the Queens borough president. In the 2019 Democratic primary for DA, she eked out a
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