The Challenge
County attorneys (a.k.a district attorneys) are the most powerful elected officials who can play a critical role in ending mass incarceration. They can choose who gets criminal charges filed against them, the severity of the charges, or if charges get filed at all. County attorneys are elected positions, yet most people don’t know who their county attorneys are, let alone feel empowered to engage with them and hold them accountable, as they do other elected positions.
The Solution
For the launch of the Smart Justice campaign in Minnesota, we needed to create a central hub where people could learn about their county attorneys—who they are, what they do, and how they fit into the bigger vision around criminal justice reform—and feel empowered to make informed decisions when voting.
In order to engage voters across the state, we designed an interactive website that functions as a resource platform for education and awareness. The platform allows people to access survey responses from all 87 counties, review where county attorneys stand on critical criminal justice reform issues, and review crucial information to help make informed choices at the voting booth.
Campaign Messages
The Smart Justice Campaign was built around these key messages:
- As a constituent, you have a right to know where your county attorney stands on criminal justice reform and racial justice issues.
- Your county attorney is your elected official. You have a right to engage with and hold your county attorney accountable when you agree or disagree with their actions.
Scenarios
To increase awareness and help people understand the role of county attorneys, we provided scenarios that allowed people to interact with the decisions their county attorneys face every day.
