Dan Quart will reform the criminal justice system and end mass incarceration by providing more alternatives to jail like addiction treatment, counseling, and mental health support. He won’t prosecute low level offenses that disproportionately impact marginalized communities like turnstile jumping, drug possession for personal use, or sex work. Instead, he will focus resources on violent and large-scale crime that make communities unsafe.

The idea that to be safer we must put more people in jail is a myth that has been peddled for years. Manhattanites know that mass incarceration criminalizes poverty, mental illness, and disproportionately affects Black and brown New Yorkers. Instead of pursuing the same punitive strategies that have been shown to fail, Dan Quart will reform the criminal justice system and end mass incarceration by providing more alternatives to jail like addiction treatment, counseling, and mental health support.

As District Attorney, Dan will prosecute less, period. He won’t prosecute low level offenses that disproportionately impact marginalized communities like turnstile jumping, drug possession for personal use, or sex work. Instead, he will focus resources on violent and large-scale crime that make communities unsafe.

You can read the full list of what Dan will and won’t prosecute here.

Dan has been a fighter for criminal justice reform his entire career. Growing up in subsidized housing in Washington Heights, Dan’s parents, a public school teacher and a social worker, taught him the importance of standing up for what’s right. As an elected leader, he’s been an outspoken and courageous advocate for reforming our criminal justice system that fails far too many Black and brown New Yorkers.

• Dan drafted and first introduced legislation to end cash bail in 2017, and his bill laid the foundation for today’s bail reforms. 
• When police unions attacked the bail reform laws last year,  Dan was one of a handful of lawmakers who voted against the rollback because he knew that it would lead to further incarceration. 
• Dan led the successful 7-year campaign to repeal a racist statewide law that banned gravity knives, a type of folding knife that could be bought at hardware stores across the city. Every year, thousands of New Yorkers were arrested and prosecuted for the possession of these tools, and according to the Legal Aid Society, nearly 90% of those arrested for carrying a folding knife were Black or Latino.
• Dan has fought for the legalization of marijuana in Albany because he knows that marijuana-related arrests disproportionately affect Black New Yorkers. As District Attorney, he will not prosecute marijuana arrests or issue summonses related to these arrests.
  

• Dan believes that connecting a person’s freedom to their wealth is immoral, which is why he will never seek cash bail as District Attorney.
• Dan will decline to prosecute: fare evasion, sex work, drug possession, loitering, trespassing, and more (read his full list here).
• Dan will end the use of conspiracy charges and racist algorithms that unfairly target Black and brown youth.