by Mike Davis<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This week, Stephan Thomas, a former King County prosecutor, announced he will run for King County prosecuting attorney. Thomas, who served as the office\u2019s director of community justice initiatives until 2019, joins an expansive pool of candidates that includes current King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg\u2019s chief of staff, Leesa Manion; King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski; and Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell.\u00a0<\/p>\n Satterberg, who served for 14 years, recently<\/a> announced he will not seek reelection. The growing field of high-profile candidates likely indicates a competitive race.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Councilmember Dembowski has a history<\/a> of pushing for criminal justice reform, including<\/a> efforts to end solitary confinement for juveniles. Mayor Ferrell, who has been in his current role since 2014, served for 16 years as a King County senior deputy prosecutor. He was head of the domestic violence court unit. Manion has been chief of staff for 15 years, but she has been in the prosecuting office for 27 years. She supervises a staff of 600, manages a budget of more than $80 million, and boasts an expansive list of accomplishments<\/a> that includes securing funding for the \u201cshots fired\u201d unit that tracks shootings in King County.\u00a0<\/p>\n With a pool of experienced candidates all known for their work in criminal justice reform, how does Thomas plan on standing out from the pack? The answer is a combination of Thomas\u2019 lived experience, growing up on the South Side of Chicago amid gang life and drug abuse, as well as his work with local community-based nonprofits rooted in restorative justice. As the King County director of community justice initiatives, he cultivated relationships with organizations like CHOOSE 180<\/a> and Community Passageways, which helped to shape his <\/a>forward-thinking plans for how to bring a full-scale restorative justice framework to the King County prosecutor\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n South Seattle Emerald<\/em><\/strong>: What made you want to run for prosecutor now? In Seattle, we just saw a lot of progressive candidates lose in our local elections. How do you feel about that, and where do you think you stand with voters?<\/strong><\/p>\n Stephan Thomas: <\/strong>That\u2019s exactly where I want to run. Because I think there\u2019s this narrative that every single person does not want safety. That there is a class of folks who do and a class of folks who don\u2019t. The reality is, we all want prosperity. That\u2019s a guarantee. I\u2019ve never met a person who said they didn\u2019t want to have an abundant life. You do not get there without a solid foundation of safety. And right now, we have a criminal justice system that when you get into it, it actually makes it way more difficult for you to prosper, whether you\u2019re a victim or whether you\u2019re someone who causes harm. The reality is, you can\u2019t get a job [if you are an offender], and you don\u2019t get what you need to heal from your trauma [if you are a victim]. And that cycle is just going to continue. So, we have to step up and combat that narrative about what safety is and how you achieve it. Because right now, they\u2019re telling us the only way to keep ourselves safe is to put you in a jail cell. I don\u2019t believe that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n SSE: What will your approach be? Outside of putting people in jail, what can you do to keep people safe?<\/strong><\/p>\n ST<\/strong>: Wouldn\u2019t it be amazing if we actually had some great stories coming out of the system? Like, stories of redemption? That\u2019s why I put my story out there. Because it\u2019s so important for folks to understand that you can start from a place of trauma, you can start at a place of being abused, and that you can grow and evolve. I got arrested seven times when I was a kid. The thing that helped me wasn\u2019t the fact that I spent some time in a jail cell. It was being able to reconcile with my dad who had abused me \u2026 and being able to go to drug rehab, which I went to twice, because I didn\u2019t get it right the first time, so I had to go again. \u2026 And for me, it was going to college. And once I\u2019m in college, I had found a purpose, and I knew I had something to live for, and that I could actually make it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Why can\u2019t that be the norm for folks that come into the system? Oftentimes, people come into the system under-resourced, then they leave under-resourced, and they never get what they need to actually succeed. It\u2019s opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, it\u2019s working with the brilliance in our community to figure out how we design processes, so that if you get arrested, if you touch the system, we can help you to get out of that situation. And the reality is, this is not something I\u2019m coming up with. The people in the community are already doing this. All I\u2019m going to do is be a prosecutor [who] has the courage and political will to say this is where our money and resources should go.<\/p>\n SSE: Seattle has a heavy influence on King County. We just saw Nicole Thomas-Kennedy run against Anne Davison, and our city seemed to side with the \u201clock \u2019em up\u201d approach. Do you think our city, or our county, is ready for your approach?<\/strong><\/p>\n ST<\/strong>: What they heard in that last election wasn\u2019t someone who\u2019s advocating for the building of new processes or new systems. What they heard was, and I\u2019m not saying this is what was communicated, but [what voters] heard [was], \u201cI keep you safe by locking them up,\u201d and the other hand was, \u201cI will do nothing, I\u2019m just going to refuse to participate in this process.\u201d And that\u2019s not what I\u2019m talking about at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hear me loud and clear: Where I grew up was the height of the war on drugs in the South Side of Chicago. When I was 7 years old, my neighbor broke into my house and stole my TV, my Nintendo, and my VCR. I didn\u2019t need that man to go to prison. But I surely did need him to be held accountable, to get some treatment, and to move on with his life. And that does not exist right now, not to the extent and not to the scale that it needs to be.<\/p>\n So, we have to move forward. What does moving forward look like? It looks like investing in the things that right now are in their infancy. Things like Community Passageways, things like CHOOSE 180, things like treatment on demand, things like housing first. Those are the things that we know work. So why wouldn\u2019t I, as a prosecutor, advocate for that?<\/p>\n And, with all that being said, there is a small class, a small percentage of people, those who are running criminal enterprises, those who molest small children, those who are into child pornography, and those who murder, rape, and pillage people; there\u2019s no option for them other than prison and incarceration. Now, the question I\u2019m going to be asking, though, is when you get to prison, what is going on? \u2026 Are you getting a trade? Are you able to go to college? Providing those things is possible.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s a small percentage of people. What about the other people who are cycling in and out and in and out? Well, we have to figure out another way to do that. [Because] that\u2019s expensive, ineffective, and is actually dangerous.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/southseattleemerald.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/B35A5034.jpg?resize=474%2C711&ssl=1\")
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