Brooklyn District Attorney Turns to Experts for Ideas on Reform

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As he begins his first full term in office, Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, has formed a committee of more than 50 criminal justice experts, hoping to sustain his predecessor’s legacy of reform by turning his agency — one of the country’s largest prosecutors’ offices — into a laboratory for new ideas.

Known as Justice 2020, the committee will bring together a coalition of pastors, police officials, public defenders, former inmates and social-justice advocates to help shape Mr. Gonzalez’s policies on a diverse array of issues: mass incarceration, wrongful convictions, gender violence, immigration and the use of big data in guiding prosecutions. The committee intends to issue a report by the spring, officials said, and Mr. Gonzalez plans to implement its recommendations in stages over the next two years.

“Justice 2020 is going to be the road map this office is going to follow,” he said on Monday, while speaking to his staff at a private meeting at Long Island University. “It will give us a blueprint for what the criminal justice system will look like.”

Mr. Gonzalez was inaugurated in Williamsburg on Sunday, and in his speech he mentioned the committee, which will take the place of a traditional transition team. Having worked in the office for more than 20 years — taking over when the last district attorney, Ken Thompson, died in the middle of his term — Mr. Gonzalez was not expected to significantly shake up his closest circle of aides after his election in November. But the committee will allow him to imprint his own vision on the office he now leads.

That vision — one that seeks to balance public safety with ensuring fairness to all of Brooklyn’s residents — has, at times, been questioned by activists and lawyers who have said the office’s progressive policies on bail reform and minor drug arrests have not always lived up to its promises. During his campaign, Mr. Gonzalez was also criticized for not holding his prosecutors accountable when they worked on cases that led to wrongful convictions.

But the committee’s mixture of members suggests that he is taking full control of the district attorney’s office with at least the tacit backing of a wide range of stakeholders in Brooklyn. Among those who have agreed to serve so far are officials from the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women; the Brennan Center for Justice; the Legal Aid Society; Make the Road NY, which advocates for immigrants; and Lambda Legal, which works on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. The committee will also include experts on wrongful convictions, clergymen from Brooklyn churches and representatives from the Police Department, the state attorney general’s office and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

The work of the committee will be managed on a daily basis by a special adviser to Mr. Gonzalez, Jill Harris, who has spent her career working for criminal justice reform at groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Drug Policy Alliance. It will be overseen by two co-chairmen: Rudy Crew, a former New York City schools chancellor who is now the president of Medgar Evers College, and Jonathan Lippman, who was once the chief judge of New York State and last year ran a commission that recommended ways to close the city’s jail complex at Rikers Island.

“What we intend to do is put together some very concrete and bold initiatives that can be put in place in a relatively short time to create the foundation for the rest of Gonzalez’s term as D.A.,” Mr. Lippman said in an interview this week. “This isn’t a couple of people in a back room. That never works. We intend to get the data, do the research, use expertise and come up with intelligent proposals.”

The committee’s success will, of course, ultimately rest on what specific policies its members recommend and how efficiently Mr. Gonzalez is able to put them into place. In shaping the committee, Mr. Gonzalez worked with an advocacy group called Fair and Just Prosecution, which also helped Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney in Chicago, design a plan of action after she entered office in 2016.

“Eric knew that he wanted some kind of process to bring new thinking to his office as he started this first elected term,” said Miriam Krinsky, the executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, which is based in Los Angeles. “You can never be complacent. There’s always room for improvement. And there are lots of areas where he can generate new thinking and bring fresh perspectives to the office and let the office think outside the box.”