“Of course, victims have rights and the perpetrators need punishment, but they also need to get well. If you can address the underlying addiction, you can prevent them from committing another crime. The options that you have as a prosecutor were somewhat limited and we had to do more work upstream in mental health, addiction treatment, and education, and some aspects of criminal justice reform and reentry. That’s one of the big reasons I spend a lot of time working on behavioral health issues.”

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