Nathan Hochman, the newly elected district attorney of Los Angeles County, has signaled a sharp policy pivot only days after being sworn in, as per Fox News.
Standing on the boundary between Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties in a video posted to social media on Sunday, Hochman declared that “times have changed” for offenders who once believed they could cross into L.A. and face “little to no consequences.”
Hochman captured the office last November with about 61 percent of the vote, defeating progressive incumbent George Gascón by roughly 20 points. The former federal prosecutor ran as an Independent who rejects both “mass incarceration” and what he called the “public-safety failure” of Gascón’s lenient charging directives.
During the campaign Hochman blasted Gascón’s support for California’s 2014 Proposition 47, which reclassified many low-level thefts (under $950) and drug offenses from felonies to misdemeanors—a change critics say emboldened repeat offenders.
“The fun is over,” Hochman said in Sunday’s video, promising to prosecute retail thieves, robbers and other offenders “fully” and to restore “order and common sense” to the nation’s largest local prosecutor’s office.
Hochman argues his approach enjoys rare bipartisan support, noting that “ultra-left liberals, independents and conservative Republicans” alike told him that public safety and proportionate accountability top their list of concerns.
The incoming DA has not detailed specific charging guidelines, but advisers say early priorities include stiffer penalties for habitual retail theft, closer coordination with neighboring counties, and a review of juvenile-justice policies that critics faulted for releasing repeat offenders too quickly under the previous administration.
