Revolutionary Road

Philadelphia’s district attorney is on a radical path to remake the criminal justice system. Democrats call him the most progressive prosecutor in America. But to the city’s cops, Larry Krasner is on the wrong side of the law

- Steve Volk

THE DRAG QUEEN, PITCHED PRECARIOUSLY ON TOP of the prison, tottered improbably at the building’s edge, in a little black dress, high heels and mountaineering gear. The occasion, this past July, was Philadelphia’s popular Bastille Day celebration, a block party for the French Revolution with musical theater, political satire—and this splash of danger.

John Jarboe, high atop the 189-year-old Eastern State Penitentiary, long closed and turned into a tourist attraction, was playing French chanteuse Édith Piaf. Then he did what—judging by the gasps—some 1,000 people clearly thought he wouldn’t do. He climbed over the edge and began to repel down. The crowd held its collective breath as, a few hops and a couple of furtive shuffles into his descent, Jarboe stopped beside a covered banner and tore away a sheet to reveal a single word: “RÉSISTEZ.”

Wilder shouts broke out, and for a moment, as the crowd’s fever seemed to build on itself, it felt as if insurrection really was in the air. This was Philadelphia, after all, home of the American Revolution and a city proudly anti-Trump. Even better, at the climax of his show, Jarboe introduced “a real, living revolutionary”: the city’s new district attorney, Larry Krasner, who is achieving a kind of celebrity rare for a city prosecutor. Since taking office in January, he’s been a guest on network news shows, and even Comedy Central, as well as an adviser to 2020 presidential candidates—all because he’s blowing up what prosecutors do:

promising more lenient prison sentences for nonviolent offenders, legalizing pot possession and prostitution, and eliminating cash bail so the poor aren’t stuck in jail before trial.