If we want public safety, we must help people find and hold jobs. Most crime is the product of poverty, addiction, mental illness, or some combination of the three. Getting people the help they need will lead to the jobs they need to independently sustain themselves and their families. Investing in keeping our kids in school. A huge percentage of folks who commit serious felonies dropped out of high school. As county attorney, I will support and create positive after-school programs and a truancy program that will end this. The resources we focus on this effort will be the best investment we have ever made in our children’s and our community’s prosperity, while enhancing our community safety. Breaking the cycle of criminality with jobs after re-entry. I will work with local employers to help the people my office has prosecuted re-enter society in a successful way that will get them off the prison merry-go-round that is our current criminal legal system.

Anyone living in this country should have unlimited opportunities. Facing the challenge of inequity. Despite the “neutral” language of today’s laws, the unequal application of those laws remains a persistent challenge. As a criminal defense lawyer for more than three decades, I have witnessed these inequities at very close range. As your Dakota County Attorney, I will do everything in my power to end them. Accountability for all. Equity doesn't mean that someone is getting a “free pass”. What it does mean is that credible claims of bias will be investigated and that there will be a culture of accountability not just for offenders, but for police and prosecutors as well. Acknowledging privilege and committing to listen. It is clearly not enough that our laws are race and gender neutral on their face when a large proportion of our citizens are so unheard, they feel compelled to take time from their lives to march in the streets. As a white man who has moved effortlessly through life, I must constantly remind myself that not everyone has shared that experience. We must be willing to listen and commit to doing better. I make that promise.

Remove harmful players from the field. Those who hurt others, whether physically or financially, must be held to account. The citizens of Dakota County have the right to feel safe in their community and demand that those in law enforcement do what is necessary to make that happen. When I am elected Dakota County Attorney, those who threaten our safety will be met with an aggressive commitment—backed by my 35 years of trial experience—that they will be held to account. Getting offenders back on track. When that account is paid, those same people will be met by no more willing advocate than me to get and keep them on the right path. Career criminals are born from a community that refuses to accept their debt as paid. The Dakota County Attorney’s office has been completely ignoring this issue for more than three decades. That will end. Not everyone will succeed, but it will no longer be because the County Attorney’s office didn’t care to try. Programs that pay for themselves. These interventions will come with a price, but that price will be nowhere near the losses we are currently suffering by filling our jail with people who offended to survive. Some of the most common items stolen from stores in the U.S. are diapers, baby formula and laundry detergent. It is an absolute travesty that we use our resources to punish people trying to feed their babies while people who defraud our government out of millions of dollars might get sued in civil court.

Public safety is not something that can be imposed on a population. Public safety is the unavoidable byproduct of community prosperity. Addressing poverty and addiction. When people don’t need to steal to feed their families, they don’t. When people aren’t drunk or high on methamphetamine, they don’t assault other people. When people get the therapy and medication they need to function, they don’t act out and hurt others. Until we address these realities, we will continue to find public safety elusive. Fixing where our systems have failed us. Dakota County has been doing the same thing the same way for 35 years, and we haven’t gotten safer. It’s time to change our focus. We cannot jail our way to safety. We must be open to exploring why every crime that is committed in Dakota County was committed. And with that knowledge, we must be willing to take the necessary steps to fix whatever went wrong.