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Prosecutorial Data Collection Is Coming To Connecticut

It's amazing we don't do this already, but let's start now.

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Connecticut, a state that I drive through very slowly on my way to Boston, is going to be leading the charge for prosecutorial transparency. I’m as shocked as anybody. But legislators there came up with the very good idea that in order to really do anything about prosecutorial bias, they have to first track what kind of prosecutors they’re dealing with.

From NBC News:

The Connecticut legislation, expected to be signed by Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, will require prosecutors to compile a variety of data, including how many defendants received prison time, plea bargains or diversionary programs. That data must be broken down by race, ethnicity, sex and age.

The state Division of Criminal Justice, which oversees prosecutors, must provide annual data to the Office of Policy and Management beginning in February 2021, and the OPM must analyze the information and issue reports yearly to the Judiciary Committee. Prosecutors are expected to begin collecting the data next year, when electronic case management systems are in place.

It is truly amazing that we don’t do this already. Connecticut will become the first state to mandate the collection of something as simple as sentencing data, broken down by race and ethnicity. That means it’ll be the first state to even try to get a handle on how deep the problem of prosecutorial bias goes.

The legislation passed unanimously. At the risk of sounding cynical, the fact that Republicans are on board gives me pause. I worry that some Republicans are in it to “prove” that the state’s prosecutors have no bias. I mean, even some Democrats aren’t even sure if the state has a problem:

“It is part of an effort to try to understand what disparities may or may not exist,” said state Sen. Gary Winfield, a New Haven Democrat who co-chairs the legislature’s Judiciary Committee. “If we’re going to take away people’s liberty, we have to make sure there’s nothing untoward in what we’re doing.”

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What people do with the numbers is a future problem. That we aren’t even collecting the data is the current issue we can fix. We’d be in a lot better of a place if we were debating what racial disparity numbers mean, as opposed to dealing with idiots who claim that racial bias in prosecutorial decisions doesn’t statistically exist.

This is a very good job, but Connecticut. Hopefully the other 49 states will follow suit quickly [looks at Mississippi]. I mean, hopefully the other states that give a damn will follow suit quickly.

Connecticut will be first state to collect prosecutor data to study racial bias [NBC News]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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