Democratic View: A Fair and Just System

What makes Tompkins County a leader in the administration of justice?

It is the District Attorney’s responsibility to promote public safety. Public safety is more than punishment. Public safety, in my view, means addressing the systemic issues that cause individuals to violate the law. There is no empirical evidence that crime rates are lower in communities with extreme “tough on crime” prosecutors. In fact, the opposite has proven to be true.

Tompkins County is a national leader when it comes to alternatives to incarceration. Our Tompkins County Treatment Court, and the Ithaca City Wellness and Recovery (mental health) Court are successful alternatives to the traditional model of prosecution. They allow non-violent offenders to remain in the community while being supervised by a team of stakeholders who are focused on keeping the offender on a positive track. The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program has been functioning for the past three years to divert people from the justice system by connecting people in need with the services that allow them to remain healthy and stable, and therefore free from arrest.

What sets Tompkins County apart from other counties when it comes to the justice system? We put in the work, not just to understand the evidence in a case, but to understand the human beings involved in a case: the victim, the offender, their families and the community. Recognizing the trauma that is underlying every case; generational trauma, which affects the victim and the offender. Understanding the human element in every individual case is critical to achieving a fair and just result. A fair and just result may leave everyone unhappy, but we have to remember that criminal cases are born from trauma; substance use disorders, mental health challenges, poverty, homelessness and other systemic factors. There are rarely happy endings to the cases that we see on a daily basis in the DA’s Office.

While incarceration should be the last resort in a criminal case, sometimes it is the appropriate result. Violent crimes, sex offenses, gun crimes and domestic violence offenses directly impact the safety of the community. My office has consistently taken those serious offenses to trial and obtained convictions over the past seven years since I took office. We approach those cases with integrity, fairness and a commitment to justice. The decision whether to take a case to trial or to seek an alternative resolution is one that I take very seriously. Crime victims deserve to have a voice in that process, and we ensure that they do.

The Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office has been recognized nationally for its data dashboard. The data dashboard was launched in 2023 and provides detailed information about the local justice system, including demographic information about individuals arrested, participation in alternatives to incarceration and case resolutions. The level of transparency is critically important for the community to see that cases are being handled fairly and without bias. The dashboard can be found through the District Attorney’s Office web page: https://tompkinscountyny.gov/da.

My goal for 2024 is to establish a restorative justice system by the end of the year. Restorative justice can be a powerful part of the adjudication process in a criminal case. It provides for accountability in a way that the traditional process does not, including face to face conversations between victims and offenders. Such meet-ups can often start the healing process while confronting the offender with the human consequences of his or her actions. Restorative justice will not replace the normal prosecution of a case, but it can add an element that has been proven to reduce recidivism. Our community does not currently have an organization trained in the facilitation of restorative justice cases, but it is my priority to ensure that we do by the end of the year. This will add another significant resource to our local justice system in furtherance of the perpetual goal of being a leader in the fair and just administration of justice in New York State.

Matthew Van Houten was first elected as District Attorney of Tompkins County in 2016. During his first term he served on the planning group for the first mental health court in New York’s Sixth Judicial District, and on the Policy Coordinating Group for the Ithaca Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program. Van Houten was in private practice for more than 20 years, handling criminal defense, family court and civil litigation matters. He is a graduate of Albany Law School of Union University and the United States Military Academy, and of Dryden High School.

Van Houten is seeking re-election this year.