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Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner appeared at a City Council hearing Monday, calling for increased funding to investigate crimes more thoroughly and arrest “big-time criminals,” while also advocating for the retention of skilled attorneys who might otherwise become personal-injury lawyers.
Krasner said there are many people out there who want to poach his young district attorneys, and he needs more money to keep them in their jobs.
“Oh, trust me, other employers are circling all the time,” Krasner told the council. “We do not need our team to run over there to work on car crashes. We need our team to be right here driving down homicide numbers, violent and property crimes across the city.”
The district attorney did not specify a number in his request, and the finance committee didn’t consider giving him more money, as it was handling mid-year budget transfers between departments, not funding proposals.
Undeterred, he went on to ask for even more money to set up a unit to go after big-time criminals instead of just locking up small-time drug dealers.
“The DAO will expand our existing unit into a division to develop and foster more robust long-term and short-term investigations,” Krasner told the committee. “We’re not talking about little stuff on the street corner, we’re talking about the big stuff, the family that has owned a corner for two decades, that’s what we’re talking about here.”
The DA came to the hearing to voice his opinion that several departments within his office need more money, and even used Mayor Cherelle Parker’s signature line to curry favor with council — and perhaps loosen the purse strings.
“Particularly involving prolific offenders, as well as further dismantling complex drug, sex, and labor trafficking operations in the city, all of which, of course, make us exactly what we want to be — safer, cleaner, greener, with economic opportunity,” he said.