The city attorney’s office is charged with prosecuting a variety of misdemeanors, including drunken driving, public intoxication, petty theft, trespassing and other low-level crimes.
Roy, 34, has promised to place a heavy emphasis on a legal process called diversion, which allows defendants to avoid prison and instead receive court-supervised social services like anger management or addiction counseling. He said in cases involving non-violent crimes, diversion is more likely to prevent people from becoming repeat offenders.
“It not only makes the individual whole, but also makes the community safer,” he said.
Ashouri, 43, said she is the only candidate to serve in the city attorney’s criminal division, handling cases involving guns, drunk driving and domestic violence. During a one-year stint as reserve deputy city attorney, he concluded that too many small cases were being prosecuted.
“We need to focus on the cases that are harming people,” he said. “Los Angeles is the hit-and-run capital. The city doesn’t take vehicle crimes seriously.”
McKinney, 58, pointing to his long history of prosecuting felony crimes, many of which were murders. In an interview, he argued that the city is not properly prosecuting quality of life crimes, which is causing the city to feel less safe.
“It looks dirty. It looks dirty. It looks chaotic. It looks chaotic,” he said.
McKinney criticized Feldstein Soto for eliminating special units in his office focused on domestic violence and gangs and guns.
Feldstein Soto, 67, putting those changes in a different light, saying he carried out a “strategic rebalancing” of the criminal branch that redistributed the office’s workload. He said the office’s gang unit “lost its primary mission” in 2021, due to a legal settlement that effectively ended enforcement of the city’s 46 gang injunctions.
During the campaign, Feldstein Soto has highlighted her work fighting sex trafficking in the city’s notorious Figueroa Corridor and most recently on nearby Western Avenue. He said the city has shifted its emphasis from arresting sex workers to prosecuting johns.
The city attorney said she has also worked to expand “restorative justice” programs, including outdoor court proceedings on Skid Row.
