"This president and this current DA may try to deflect from the true issues of racism in this nation and in our legal system by instead choosing to villainize Americans arguing that black lives must matter too, but we must root out all vestiges of white supremacy in our systems and institutions. The culture of the Orleans Parish DA’s Office must change so that we can achieve real justice for victims and others caught up in the criminal justice system" - Jason 

The District Attorney’s Office has been guided by a win-at-all-cost culture that prioritizes high conviction rates, artificially set high screening acceptance rates and harsh sentencing over more effective approaches that are proven to reduce crime.  

As District Attorney, Jason will replace a culture that seeks victory for prosecutors with a culture that seeks justice for victims.

• Jason has a record of fearlessly fighting for progressive reform of our criminal justice system. 
• He will reject cases built on racial profiling and illegal use of stop-and-frisk, and reform the ineffective and unfair money bail system.  
• Jason will prioritize the prosecution of serious crimes and will seek alternatives to incarceration  on low level nonviolent offenders, which will drastically reduce the number of jail beds necessary in the city of New Orleans. This will save millions of valuable tax dollars and let traumatized communities begin to heal, and begin restoring trust in the criminal justice system again.

As Chair of the City Council Criminal Justice Committee, Jason has led the fight against the current DA and his regressive and abusive policies.

For more than 20 years Jason has been speaking truth to power and fighting for the rights of the people of this city. 

He will continue to press that case as District Attorney.

End racial profiling. End Police brutality.

Abuses of authority by those crowned with the public trust are far too common, and have been consistently ignored by the current District Attorney. As NOPD leadership has realized in the wake of the current federal consent decree, outside pressure can improve both the culture and policies of local law enforcement. 

• Jason will maintain that pressure for reform by properly screening and refusing cases that involve abusive or discriminatory actions by the police.
• Jason will proactively notify NOPD leadership of problematic reports or other evidence of questionable police work, as he believes is the prosecutor's duty. This will not only serve to increase accountability and identify patterns of police misconduct, but also provide a tremendous learning opportunity to help build better officers, and in turn, make better case investigations. 
• Recognizing the high standards that a position of public trust commands, Jason will not hesitate to prosecute officers for abuses when appropriate.

The current DA commits to accepting at least 90% of cases that come across his desk. With this, he essentially commits to accepting and prosecuting a number of bad cases involving improper or unconstitutional arrests, thereby encouraging and endorsing a culture of bad behavior that he is legally sworn to fight. This very pattern of blind case acceptance is often a gateway for even more outrageous law enforcement behavior.

Record of Reform: Councilmember Jason Williams Announces Plans to Create New Advisory Committee to Examine Allocation of City Resources

Record of Reform: New Orleans City Council Calls for New Public Database on Police Misconduct

Focus on the crimes that matter most.

Stop wasting resources prosecuting insufficient and insignificant cases.

Properly screen cases.

Other District Attorneys throughout the state typically prosecute 60 to 75% of cases forwarded to them, using a robust screening process to weed out legally insufficient or frivolous cases in the interest of justice. The current DA, however, has set a quota of accepting and prosecuting over 90% of them. In doing so, he shirks his responsibility to guard public trust and resources. Not only does this overburden the courts and delay trials, but it is the number one driver that makes our city and state the most incarcerated places in America.

The current DA's over-prosecution is based on the misguided belief that the more we prosecute, the safer we are. His win-at-all-cost toxic culture has not made us safer, but it has made New Orleans the national leader of exonerations by wrongfully convicting innocent men.

• Jason will decline to prosecute cases that are not supported by sufficient and legally-obtained evidence.

Treat addiction as a medical problem, not a crime

Drug overdose deaths in New Orleans have outpaced homicides in recent years. Jason recognizes and has always argued that the solution to drug addiction is treatment, not incarceration, regardless of the type of drug or ethnicity of the user. Jails and prisons are simply not equipped to treat addiction. 

• As District Attorney, Jason will work with criminal court judges and other government actors to increase treatment capacity and opportunities for diversion. This will help those arrested for drug possession or minor addiction-related offenses obtain the treatment they need rather than jail time.

Treat mental illness as a medical problem, not a crime

Untreated and under-treated serious mental illnesses place stress on every facet of the criminal justice system. Jails and prisons are ill-equipped to treat psychiatric disorders, yet as many as 1 in 5 incarcerated persons in the United States suffers a serious mental illness. Once incarcerated, those with serious mental illness are at increased risk of victimization and often do not get the treatment they need, causing even further mental deterioration. It is immoral, ineffective, and extremely costly to use the criminal justice system to warehouse our residents living with mental illness.

• As District Attorney, Jason will work with agencies, stakeholders, and affected citizens to implement a full continuum of coordinated psychiatric treatment and care in communities. 
• As District Attorney, Jason will double down on the work he has already done as a council member with civil court, mental health activists, and other agencies to expand Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) in New Orleans. AOT is court-supervised treatment for individuals with severe mental illness who meet strict legal criteria. 
• Jason will work to move mental health care from the criminal justice system to real long-term treatment options, recognizing the overwhelming body of research establishing the effectiveness of AOT in improving treatment outcomes. The research specifically demonstrates that AOT reduces the risks of hospitalization, arrest and incarceration,  homelessness, victimization and violence. It not only increases public safety, but also increases treatment adherence and eases the strain placed on family members or other primary caregivers.

Reform the current money bail system

“We owe it to morality, to all tax payers and the city at large to stop paying a king’s ransom to house and feed a population of nonviolent residents who could be working to house and feed themselves.” - Jason

The vast majority of people held in our local jail have not been convicted of any crime; they simply cannot afford bail while awaiting their day in court. This is a shame and must end.

Due to the current DA's overly aggressive tactics, many individuals too poor to buy their freedom languish in jail until they're ultimately acquitted or assigned probation and released. Their time in jail does nothing to achieve public safety, but it costs them, their families and the city greatly.

From his years on the City Council, Jason understands that the current money bail system actually extracts huge sums of money from the city’s budget. It costs over $2 million per year just to staff a 50-person pod at our local jail. 

By engaging in thoughtful, practical reform of the current “money bail” system, New Orleans will see a reduced strain on the legal system and a reduced jail population, paying dividends back into the City’s coffers. We can use that savings to stabilize the budget, invest in communities, and create a system built on equity and fairness. 

• As District Attorney, Jason will ensure that suspects who are dangerous to others or may not return for trial will still be held, while implementing safe alternatives to cash bail for those charged with nonviolent offenses, including monitoring and regular check-ins.

Record of Reform: Committee Hosts Discussion on Ending Money Injustice in the Criminal Legal System

Record of Reform: Council Releases Bonds Paid Public Information Dashboard - New Orleans City Council

Respect and protect everyone.

Commit to transparency. Confront and correct the sins of the past. 

Treat all victims with respect and sensitivity

Current District Attorney Cannizzaro has failed to prioritize the real needs of victims. The response to violence should be centered on the needs of survivors, based on accountability, and developed in consultation with victim advocates and experts. 

• Jason will expand support of victim and witness service programs. 
• Jason will drastically improve communication with victims and family members, while relying on trauma-informed, evidence-based approaches to handling cases better, particularly cases of sexual and intimate partner violence.

Never jail rape or domestic abuse survivors

DA Cannizzaro has refused to end his grievous practice of jailing victims of domestic violence and sexual assault as a means of forcing them to testify. As progressive prosecutors in major American cities have started using their power to repair their communities, it is profoundly troubling that our current DA is hell-bent on these types of regressive policies. Such actions have a chilling effect on current and future victims and witnesses.

These policies, in some instances, have caused the survivors to spend more time in jail than the actual perpetrators. The idea that a prosecutor would jail victims of violence and sexual assault is misogynistic, barbaric, and despicable. Frankly, it is embarrassing to have this issue play out on the national stage, receiving strong rebukes from Democrats and Republicans alike all across the nation. 

• Jason will never jail a sexual assault or domestic abuse survivor.

Record of Reform: Councilman seeks to condemn Orleans DA for jailing crime victims | Crime/Police | nola.com

Record of Reform: Council President Releases Statement on Practices of District Attorney Cannizzaro

We have a moral obligation to protect all of our residents. On the City Council, Jason fought President Trump’s anti-immigration agenda and built trust between immigrants and our municipal government. 

• As District Attorney, Jason will work to maintain New Orleans as a “welcoming city” and protect the Fourth Amendment rights of all residents. Legal proceedings often affect immigration status, and consequently, relations between marginalized communities and law enforcement. Jason understands these complexities and will take those effects into account in making prosecutorial policies and decisions.

Record of Reform: ‘Not in my city, not in my country’: Jason Williams gives fiery speech at #MuslimBan protest | WGNO

Record of Reform: Open Letter to Mayor Cantrell - Our Voice Nuestra Voz

Record of Reform: Councilmembers Helena Moreno & Jason Williams Release Statement on Deportation of Delmar Joel Ramirez Palma

During Jason's tenure on the City Council, he pushed for use of technology and data to enhance the lives of New Orleanians. Jason established the first of their kind, public-facing dashboards to track neighborhood crime trends, track police incidents of misconduct, jail population, money bail, traffic camera tickets and local COVID-19 spread. These dashboards were posted to the City Council website and provided residents 24 hour access to updates on what was occurring in their city from the comfort of their homes. 

Transparency will be the cornerstone of the DA's office just as it was during Jason's tenure on the Council. 

• As District Attorney, Jason will allow every New Orleanian to see what their money is paying his office to do. 
• Jason will collect and publish data on who his office decides to prosecute and not prosecute in order to remain accountable to the public. 

Record of Reform: Crime Dashboard

Record of Reform: Consent Decree Dashboard

Record of Reform: Jail Population Snapshot

Record of Reform: Bond Paid Dashboard

Record of Reform: City Council President Jason Williams and District "D" Councilmember Jared Brossett to Host Know Your Rights Forum on October 19

Record of Reform: City Council Releases Open Letter to District Attorney Requesting Data and Transparency - New Orleans City Council

If we want all the people of New Orleans to believe in our laws and courts, we must acknowledge the pain and havoc our criminal legal system has wrought in our poor and black communities. 

• As District Attorney, Jason will establish a new Civil Rights Division. This division will: 

(1) Work with federal authorities to aggressively pursue charges against any police officer or other official who hurts, lies or cheats in the name of the law, including past investigations that were dropped.

(2) Re-investigate cold murder cases. Too many Black and brown people have been murdered and their killers never identified or held accountable because we've failed to solve enough crime in poor neighborhoods. 

(3) Review the accuracy and justice of past convictions and sentences. Current DA Cannizzaro has made it a practice not to disclose new evidence that might reveal a past conviction was made erroneously or through misconduct by police or prosecutors. 

• Jason will immediately create a special Conviction Integrity Division within his office dedicated to rooting out and exposing evidence that might allow an innocent person to go free, no matter how many years have passed. This fully staffed prosecutorial integrity unit will review past convictions, help free the wrongfully convicted and pursue the real perpetrators. It will not operate in a vacuum. Rather, they will search for any pattern of past misconduct so that any similar cases can also be reviewed. 
• Jason will be proactive in preventing wrongful convictions in the future as well. He will mandate that all potentially exculpatory evidence be shared with the defense contemporaneously.

Record of Reform: Councilmember Jason Williams Issues Statement in Response to Today's U.S. Supreme Court Decision Abolishing Split Juries

Record of Reform: Council President to Bring "Undesign the Redline" Exhibit to City Hall

Address root causes of delinquency.

Treat children as children. 

The overwhelming majority of justice system-involved youth have been exposed to victimization and other childhood adversities. Up to 33% have developed PTSD. The jailing of juveniles causes additional trauma that will further reduce their opportunities to become productive members of society. Thus, it is important to look to the root causes of juveniles acting out and provide services based on a comprehensive assessment of needs.

• In managing juvenile delinquency cases referred to his office, Jason will make trauma-informed screening, assessment, and wrap-around care the standard.

The brain of a juvenile is much different than that of an adult, and understanding those differences is critical in responding to and reforming juvenile misconduct. 

• Jason understands this and will keep youthful offenders in the juvenile system rather than transferring them to a court designed for adults. 
• In order to help juveniles better understand accountability and the impact of their actions, Jason will implement restorative justice approaches where appropriate.

Record of Reform: City Council Requests Budget Allocation for Early Childhood Education - New Orleans City Council

Record of Reform: New Orleans City Council Calls For Increase In Trauma Services For Children | Center for Health Journalism

Record of Reform: LCCR : New Orleans City Council Commits to Addressing Childhood Trauma

Record of Reform: https://gradelevelreading.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/New-Orleans-Jason-Williams-Champion-write-up.pdf

Record of Reform: City Council Criminal Justice Committee Receives Presentations on Juvenile Intervention Strategies

Record of Reform: Councilmember Jason Williams Issues Statement on Juvenile Intervention Strategies