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The D.A. Race: What's at stake?

BARRING A MAJOR political upheaval, Philadelphia's next D.A. will be chosen by fewer than 10 percent of its voters. With the Democratic Party's lopsided registration edge, whoever wins the primary this month will almost certainly be the next D.A. Factor in the usual tiny turnout for primary elections and you have a formula that could set democracy on its head.

BARRING A MAJOR political upheaval, Philadelphia's next D.A. will be chosen by fewer than 10 percent of its voters.

With the Democratic Party's lopsided registration edge, whoever wins the primary this month will almost certainly be the next D.A. Factor in the usual tiny turnout for primary elections and you have a formula that could set democracy on its head.

Five Democratic candidates for the Democratic Party nod, and one Republican have shown up everywhere that they could draw a crowd - and into many places where they couldn't. But for reasons that don't discredit them, the campaign for district attorney has gotten very little traction.

There is far too much at stake in this election for any of us to sit back and let a tiny minority determine its outcome. We will be choosing the second-highest elected official in the city and its chief elected law-enforcement officer.

The man we elect this time (there are no female candidates) will run a law firm with a $32 million budget that employs more than 500 people, including 300 prosecutors. The D.A.'s office disposes of more than 75,000 criminal cases in an average year.

But this is anything but an average year. This year's election will signal a new direction for an office that has been run for a generation by D.A. Lynne Abraham, who is retiring.

By any fair standard, Abraham has done a laudable job. She has set a high standard for community engagement, public safety and concern for victims' rights.

But her tenure has been marked by an adversarial relationship with judges and with the last two mayors. It would be counterproductive to assign blame, but those territorial struggles have come to illustrate a criminal justice system that is dysfunctional.

Each of the candidates for D.A. has outlined what their priorities will be, and how they'd set a course for their administration. They range from community justice centers and realigned charging units to granting district attorneys more discretion. But whoever the next D.A. is must start addressing a process that will reduce prison overcrowding without endangering public safety. We are currently confining more than 9,000 people in a system built to accommodate 6,000. As this page pointed out recently, the city spends twice as much on locking people up than on recreation, libraries and Fairmount Park combined. And that cost is roughly double what it was a decade ago, with no end in sight.

Many of these inmates are awaiting trial and could be controlled outside prison walls at far less cost and with little or no added risk to us.

This is a job for an administrator with the political acumen to push an unpopular policy. He must replace tough talk with tough decisions about who we confine.

We can't build our way out of this overcrowding crisis. A closer working relationship between the D.A. and the courts must lead to creative alternatives to confinement for many of the inmates we are holding now.

All of this must be done with fewer resources because the next D.A. will be working with a smaller budget. He will have to be as tough as our last D.A. but even more resourceful and creative.

It's a tall order. But we are confident that at least one of the candidates running for the nomination of the two parties can handle this important transition. (Watch for our endorsement later this week.)

The question is whether we can handle the change that is required of us as voters. We can let a tiny minority make these course-altering decisions. Or we can set a new paradigm and take this election out of the hands of the interested few. *