Philly D.A.

There is a big move in the United States right now to elect "progressive" DA's who want to lessen the number of people in jail and prison. They run on not prosecuting non violent crimes and juvenile suspects. And redirecting funds to rehabilitation and social programs. Unfortunately at the time of this review, crime was up in all or most of the cities with these progressive DA's.

I support not imprisoning so many people. Especially for small drug possesion amounts. But I believe the first responsibility of the criminal justice system --- which includes the district attorney's office --- is to keep the law abiding public safe. Not giving second and third chances to career criminals.

This series spent most of it's time on not prosecuting certain crimes, releasing people from incarceration, and going after "bad" cops. And little to none on prosecuting, convicting and jailing violent criminals.

I don't know how long this series is. I just finished episode 8.

And I don't know how long this experiment is going to last. I just wonder how many law abiding people are going to suffer being criminally victimized, before this progressive DA movement either turns things around. Or people decide it's not working.

When I first started watching, I thought this was a drama. After about 10 minutes, I realised that it was an exceptional real-life documentary about a campaigning new District Attorney and the team of like-minded individuals he builds up around him.

Larry Krasner wins election to the post, then sets out to right the many injustices in the US criminal justice system, as it applies to the citizens of Philadelphia.

As a citizen of the UK, I hadn't previously realised quite how much power a DA's office has in the US. They can have a real influence over which crimes are prosecuted, sentencing and parole policy, as well as holding other institutions to account - especially where the police are concerned.

As the series progresses, we meet some of the outstanding campaigners who join Larry in battle and hear a number of heartbreaking stories and statistics. The number of Phildelphians imprisoned for many years, for trivial incidents (or simply their inability to pay a huge bail bond) is truly shocking. Not surprisingly, this disproportionately affects poor and black citizens.

I'd love to see a follow up on what happened next.

Filmed during the untruth era of Trump, Philly DA is an important documentation of a failing justice system and its glacial reform. Battling and transforming endemic institutional emotionalism, Larry Krasner and his team are shown to be flawed heroes attempting to apply social science to real world decay.

Unlike the other people reviewing this nonsensical puff piece about Krasner, I actually live in the hell hole of Philadelphia and completely understand what he's done here. Let me be perfectly clear, the man is absolutely hated in this city. We set a record for homicides last year and are on pace to break it this year already. This has nothing to do with Donald Trump and everything to do with Krasner and his "progressive" policies. Don't waste your time with this show, just look at the stats.

America's justice system is shockingly punitive, often driven by proescutors elected for their promises to be "tough on crime." But an increasing number of cities, including Philadelphia, have started to elected liberal D. A.s. This programme profiles Larry Krasner as he tries to reform his city's approach to prosecuting crime. His approach is porttayed by his many enemies as letting the criminals off; but in my opinion, it's both more humane, and likely to be long-term more effective. The series is unquestionanbly partisan; some of Krasner's opponents come accross as monstrous, and no-one is allowed to articulate on camera specific things that Kranser might have done wrong. Even when some long standing prosecutors are fired because they don't fir the new regime, we never learn exactly what their points of disagreement with the boss are. In some ways, the lack of even-handedness weakens the case for what Kranser is doing; but then maybe the old ways were simply indefensible. In any case, it's an important series, given America's continuing racial and economic divisions, and the role that the state plays in defending and re-enforcing them.