Like Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Rachael Rollins in Boston, and Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, Manhattan’s new District Attorney Alvin Bragg was elected after campaigning to bring a more progressive approach to the criminal justice system; he also pledged to reduce the population of people held pre-trial on the infamous Rikers Island jail complex. After two months in office, however, supporters are worried that Bragg’s progressive messaging is already giving way to the same brutal system they elected him to change. TRNN Executive Producer Eddie Conway speaks with Olayemi Olurin about Bragg’s first months in office, the ongoing crisis at Rikers, and how “progressive” a District Attorney can be in a broken system designed to protect the wealthy and criminalize the poor.
Olayemi Olurin is a public defender and staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society and an analyst at the Law & Crime Network.
Read the transcript of this interview:
Pre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
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