SOHO POLITICS: CYRUS VANCE, JR., CANDIDATE FOR MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Since Bob Morgenthau, known as “The Boss” by many of his staff, has decided not to run again, the field seems to be narrowed to two major candidates: Cyrus Vance, Jr. and Leslie Crocker Snyder. Both are experienced people who know criminal law. Snyder, who has been a judge and Vance, a former Manhattan A.D.A and criminal defense attorney, are both formidable candidates.
We met with Vance in SoHo and had a conversation about his campaign. His interest in new directions for the District Attorney’s office focused upon the varied aspects of fairness and practicality in our criminal justice system. He spoke about expanding the community presence of the District Attorney’s office – known, as he describes it, as “Community Based Justice.” He seems to liken this approach to the Precinct system for the Police. Such a system would allow the D.A. to have people on the ground in certain areas of Manhattan which would make it easier to do outreach, improve education and keep track of trends that need attention BEFORE negative changes might begin to occur.
Vance spent six years, from 1982 to 1988, in the Manhattan D.A.’s office as an A.D.A. where he handled cases that ranged from political corruption to white collar crime. Currently, he is an attorney with the firm of Morvillo and Abramowicz, a leading criminal defense law firm.
Having been on both sides of the fence, he feels that he is uniquely qualified to comprehend the strengths and weaknesses of a system that needs to be re-evaluated. And, this is important, he understands the problem of recidivism and the difficulties and dangers from those released from prison that must be re-incorporated into society. They must re-adjust – especially when those individuals are released into a community that is facing the current harsh economic realities that threaten all of us.
To prepare for the 15,000 or so prisoners who are released each year into the New York City area, we need to make some changes. Vance suggests that support teams could address some of the pressing needs of these people—education, housing, mental health and employment—which could substantially benefit the community. While this would cost money, it would be far less expensive than the current price for repeat offenders who could instead become productive taxpayers rather than criminals.
Interestingly, he does not see his viewpoints as either Liberal or Conservative in nature, but simply practical. Prison time has been shown to not be an effective means of changing behavior, according to Vance. And his desire is to reduce crime and improve public safety. Since we currently have a relatively low crime rate, we should be proactive and begin to stress plans that will head off the potential effects of a difficult economic environment that is unfolding.
With the huge workloads that A.D.A.’s now have assigned to them, the average case gets about 10 seconds for a judgment call to be made on their outcome. Vance would like to see a reduction in that caseload in order to provide better justice and give us a chance to improve future behavior with options that would aid fairness in dispositions.
In order to accomplish this, Vance wants to increase the number of people on the bench by arranging better scheduling and requesting an increase of 4 to 6 new judges.
Bob Morgenthau has done a stellar job on his watch, says Vance, and now he sees the role of the new Manhattan D.A. is to provide new leadership, using intelligence and renewed creativity to move forward in difficult economic times.
