incarceration."
Nearly all of District Attorney Krasner's policies "create a
presumption" for ADAs to follow and require approval from
District Attorney Krasner himself or a first assistant district
attorney for deviations from the policies.
District Attorney Krasner, in an April 2021 report published
by the District Attorney's Office (DAO) titled "Ending Mass
Supervision: Evaluating Reforms," wrote in his opening letter:
"I am proud of the work this office has done to make
Philadelphians, particularly Philadelphians of Color, freer from
unnecessary government intrusion, while keeping our communities
safe." In reality, the policies and practices of the
Philadelphia District Attorney's Office instituted under the
direction of District Attorney Krasner have led to catastrophic
consequences for the people of the City of Philadelphia.
According to the City Controller, spikes in gun violence and
homicides have dramatically impacted historically disadvantaged
neighborhoods, and those neighborhoods are "primarily low-income
with predominately black or African American residents." The
Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) reports that the number of
homicide victims has increased every year since 2016, more than
doubling from 2016 to 2021, with a year-over-year increase of
40% between 2019 and 2020. As of October 16, 2022, there have
already been 430 homicides in the City of Philadelphia in 2022.
As of October 17, 2022, reported trends gathered from the PPD's
"incident" data, which tracks the reporting of all crimes in
addition to homicides, shows a 12% increase in all reported
offenses, a 6% increase in violent offenses and a 21% increase
in property offenses.
While incidents of violent crime are increasing, prosecution
of crime by the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office has
decreased during this same period. In 2016, the Philadelphia
District Attorney's Office reported that only 30% of "all
offenses" resulted in a dismissal or withdrawal, but that number
spiked to 50% in 2019, 54% in 2020, 67% in 2021 and 65% to date
in 2022.
A similar trend is evident when filtering the data for
violent crimes, where, in 2016, the withdrawal and dismissed
violent crime cases accounted for 48% of all violent crime case
outcomes, but that percentage increased to 60% in 2019, to 68%
in 2020, to 70% in 2021 and to 66% in 2022 to date. Data from
the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission relating to violations of
the Uniform Firearms Act (VUFA) evidences a similar jarring
trend. The Sentencing Commission reports that guilty
dispositions in the City of Philadelphia declined from 88% in
2015 to 66% in 2020, compared to a decline from 84% to 72% in
counties of the second class, with the driver of the decrease
being nolle pros dispositions. As compared to the Statewide data
and other county classes, in the City of Philadelphia the
percent of guilty verdicts has decreased significantly, while
the percent of nolle prossed cases has increased.
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