The Legitimation Strategies of “Progressive” Prosecutors

Abstract

This article focuses on the self-legitimation strategies of frontline prosecutors working in a Northeastern city in the United States (“Belton”). The research took place in a self-described “progressive” prosecutor's office in the midst of a legitimacy crisis that prosecutors faced across the country. The prosecutors in Belton spoke about their role and practices in the face of this legitimacy crisis through a strategy of differentiation from other criminal justice actors, aimed at establishing their purported positional and moral superiority in enacting criminal justice practices, and through minimizing their responsibility for the systemic harms that prosecutors more generally have been said to perpetuate.