The importance of electing an experienced, knowledgeable, and progressive DA like Seth Williams has never been so clear to me as it was yesterday as I left prison for the last time.  No, I was not myself incarcerated.  I am taking Professor Marie Gottschalk’s PSCI 435, a class taught inside the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center (PICC) and in which half students are from Penn students and half are inmates at the jail (for a scratch-the-surface story on the class, see this article from the DP).  Yesterday was our last class at PICC.  As I said final goodbyes to my fellow classmates who, instead of heading to Spring Fling will be spending the weekend in their cells, I wondered how a college student like me, with no real voice or power, could make any real impact on the philosophy, bureaucracy, and industry of mass incarceration.  A small but critical step at the local level, I  believe, is electing progressive Democrats committed to reform.

As Seth Williams says, “the criminal justice system is broken,” and it is time for new leadership to make the progressive changes to fight both the moral injustices as well as the detrimental economic and social impacts the American incarceration system has on our society.  In a nation with the highest incarceration rate in the world (both per capita as well as in absolute numbers), Philadelphia has the highest incarceration rate of any American city.  I could go on and on with alarming statistics about how this negatively affects our economy, our social capital, our conceptions of citizenship and equality, and the individual lives of thousands of Philadelphians.  However, a lesson I took from Professor Gottschalk’s extraordinary class is not only that awareness and knowledge are critical to understanding the problem, but also that a solution requires courageous public servants willing to challenge the status quo.

Seth Williams is one such courageous public servant.  Seth understands that a multi-dimensional approach is necessary to combat crime justly and effectively.  By “assigning a prosecutor to every neighborhood,” Seth will restructure the DA’s office to make it more responsive to community needs and focused on the most violent offenders.  In addition, Seth will work to reduce recidivism through programs such as “Back On Track,” an effort started by progressive Democrat and San Francisco DA Kamala Harris, to turn first-time offenders away from a life of crime.  Seth also understands the expensive and socially destructive problem of overcrowding in Philadelphia’s prison system.  In pursuit of a more efficient and more just approach, Seth will work to identify which offenders it makes sense to keep locked up, and which have committed only minor, nonviolent offenses for which very long sentences make little sense from any perspective.

If you care about having a safe city and a just society, please check out Seth Williams’s plans for Philadelphia: http://www.votesethwilliams.com/where-seth-stands.  And on May 19th, be sure to get out and vote for Seth, a progressive with experience, understanding, and a plan for change.