Durham DA Deberry wants criminal justice to reduce crime, not just punish it

Criminal justice is not easy. We live in a country in which our highest values are freedom and fairness and we assume justice naturally flows from them. However, we also know that we live in a country with a complex history of racism that impacts everything we do. Criminal justice is where our values and history collide.

Research and common sense tell us that the ways our country has responded to crime in the past—reactively and punitively — have not been an effective deterrent of crime. Instead, the data indicates incarceration can actually lead some people to be more likely to commit crimes, and those convictions and the collateral consequences can have damaging effects long after a person has served their sentence.

We have been fighting a disastrous “War on Drugs” for a generation that has resulted in not only more people in prison but more people addicted to drugs. Mass incarceration has come at a high cost to our wallets, our neighbors and our communities. Yet, it has not done much to lower crime rates, respond to the reasons a crime occurred, or adequately address the trauma, loss, and disruption victims of crime experience.

We know we need to do things differently. Policing and prosecution alone will not eliminate crime in our community, but at the Durham DA’s Office we are committed to using our position to be smart on crime, to protect the rights of everyone who comes through this system and to administer justice in a way that is fair, equitable and productive.

It has been just over a year since I was sworn in as your elected district attorney. In the time since, the Durham County District Attorney’s Office has accomplished so much; that work is outlined in our office’s 2019 Annual Report. I

We’ve strengthened our relationships with law enforcement and victims’ services organizations.

We’ve made strides in reducing the use of pretrial incarceration for nonviolent offenses, resolving a backlog of old homicide cases, and utilizing alternatives and additions to the traditional court process to achieve outcomes that better serve victims, the accused, and the community.

We’ve shifted resources to the prosecution of serious offenses, like homicides, serious assaults, sexual assaults, domestic violence and human trafficking.

We’ve expanded our use of restorative justice, cognitive behavioral intervention, and other programs that focus on changing unsafe behavior and repairing harm.

We’ve diverted lower-level cases and those stemming from mental illness, substance use and poverty that are not best addressed through the court system.

On January 30, we’re holding a town hall where staff will give an overview of the court process and our role in it, detail the work the DA’s Office did in 2019, and hear your experiences with and questions about the justice system. We share our neighbors’ concerns about shootings in Durham and will spend part of the evening talking about gun violence from the perspective of the courts and how our office is responding to these serious offenses. The town hall will be held at 6:00 p.m. on January 30 at St. Joseph AME Church, at 2521 Fayetteville Street in Durham.

We hope you’ll join us.

This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 4:51 PM.