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In a 2020 article, the Heritage Foundation claims that "rogue prosecutors" (described in the article as prosecutors who are part of the "so-called progressive prosecutor movement") are partly responsible for increasing crime (my highlight):

There is nothing progressive about the rogue prosecutor movement. It is dangerous and fundamentally flawed for four reasons:

  • It usurps the constitutional role of the legislative branch;

  • It abuses and misunderstands the role of the county prosecutor;

  • Violent crime increases in cities where rogue prosecutors have been elected;

  • and Victims are forgotten and public safety overall suffers.

While less specific as to who they consider "rogue prosecutors", the Heritage Foundation reiterates the claim in a 2022 article (my highlight):

The very nature of criminal justice—to protect the innocent and increase public safety—is today undermined by a group of district attorneys (DAs) in America’s big, mostly Democratic-run cities.

These rogue prosecutors, and those who fund them, dress up their schemes with poll-tested feel-good language like “re-imagining prosecution,” and argue that “data and science” back their pro-criminal, anti-victim approach.

But that’s just nonsense when you see the actual results of their pro-criminal policies—urban disorder, mass shoplifting, open prostitution, and drug markets, and, in many cases, record numbers of shootings and murders.

Schmuddi
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Jeremiah Ambroise
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    I note the first claim might be noting a correlation, but I think the second claim is claiming causation, which is easier to debunk and harder to confirm. – Oddthinking Aug 14 '23 at 14:28
  • This may be a tricky question to answer. This claim was the response I got when I asked someone (in real life!) about how crime could possibly be increasing like they said if the official stats showed it decreasing. – Laurel Aug 14 '23 at 14:31
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    We'd have to start with an objective definition of "rogue" in order to avoid goalpost-moving and true-Scotsman issues. – Nate Eldredge Aug 14 '23 at 15:26
  • It's strange that both this question and the linked article assume everyone already knows what "rogue prosecutor" means. The term really should be defined in the question. ¶ My impression is that "rogue prosecutors" are those that arbitrarily decide not to prosecute certain laws, or not to prosecute certain groups of people (generally based on left-wing political correctness). – Ray Butterworth Aug 14 '23 at 16:15
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    Any answer is complicated by the high subjectivity of crime reporting -- whether victims report crimes (since some communities don't) and whether local law enforcement counts them on a consistent basis. Bodies stack up, so it's harder to miscount murders, but rape and domestic violence often don't get reliably reported. – jeffronicus Aug 14 '23 at 17:27
  • @jeffronicus The claim is particularly focussed on shootings and murders which are reported fairly reliably and consistently. – matt_black Aug 14 '23 at 21:06
  • @RayButterworth The heritage foundation use of "rogue prosecutor" roughly equates to "Democrat". They also use the term "progressive" and have some specifics, but tend to illustrate that with less harsh punishments for the less severe crimes. – matt_black Aug 14 '23 at 21:09
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    We don't want to hear the OP's definition of the term. We want to hear the claimant's definition. In the first article they make it clear they are referring to the "progressive prosecutor movement", which appears to be a term of art - e.g. [*A Public Defender Definition of Progressive Prosecution*](https://law.stanford.edu/publications/a-public-defender-definition-of-progressive-prosecution/). – Oddthinking Aug 15 '23 at 03:31
  • The relevant claim in the 2022 article has essentially no evidentiary value. It asserts that record numbers of shootings and murders have occurred **in many cases.** What proportion of cases constitutes many? One third? If one third of Americans died in handgun shootings annually, that would be many. But if one third of the votes in a presidential election were cast for one major-party candidate, that would be astoundingly few. – Paul Tanenbaum Aug 17 '23 at 13:09

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