Not surprisingly, the candidates for Jackson County prosecutor promise what many voters want to hear.
They vow to prosecute more crimes than the current prosecutor, Jean Peters Baker, especially nonviolent, lower-level property crimes and drug cases.
“I don’t have the luxury of being soft on crime,” said candidate Melesa Johnson during one of the many candidate forums that have been held. “So yes, we are going to be doing a lot more prosecuting in Jackson County under my administration.”
Johnson’s fellow Democrat rival for the office, Stephanie Burton, cites tension between the prosecutor’s office and police as one reason cases are not being filed.
“When I speak to police officers, not just here in the city, but in every jurisdiction in Jackson County, the police officers are upset because when they do their job and hand those cases over, there’s an expectation…that the prosecutor will prosecute those crimes,” Burton said. “But they’re not.”
The sole Republican candidate, Tracey Chappell, also vows more prosecutions.
“When we look at Jackson County as a whole, it is violent,” Chappell said during a public forum. “It is more violent than it has ever been before. There’s more violent crime and there’s more property crimes that have not even been touched.”
(Notably, the number of homicides in Kansas City is down so far in 2024, with 84 compared to 115 at this time last year.)
Only the third Democrat seeking the office, John Gromowsky, has taken a slightly different stand on property crimes in public comments and on social media.
Gromowsky, an assistant Jackson County prosecutor in the violent crimes unit, noted that sometimes the evidence doesn’t support a filing. But he emphasized that even some nonviolent cases should be acted on, and swiftly.
“Under my administration, the chronic nonviolent offenders need to start putting their mind around the idea that they may be going to prison too,” Gromowsky said.
All three Democratic candidates for Jackson County prosecutor gathered recently to record a special episode of Kansas City PBS’ “Week in Review.”
Breaking down crime data
Is the promise of an increase in prosecutions feasible? The current prosecutor doesn’t think so.
The office cannot file a case it never receives from law enforcement, a scenario that Baker emphasizes is not necessarily a criticism of police.
“The problem is that I don’t get them,” Baker said of cases.
Rather, Baker points to how cases move through the system and the vast numbers of difficult-to-solve property crimes.
Police need to investigate, make an arrest and hand off a case file to prosecutors before formal charges can be considered, Baker said.
For example, there are thousands of nonviolent property crimes annually — everything from thefts from a car to vandalism. But the overall solve rate for such crimes is around 7%, she said.
“So, if it’s not solved, it can’t come to me,” she said.
Publicly available data offers a deeper look.
For instance, in 2022 there were 7,587 violent crime reports to the Kansas City Police Department. Just 18% were “cleared,” or sent to the prosecutor to consider filing formal charges.
They see an even lower percentage of property crime cases. In 2022, there were 24,356 reports of property crime, and just 6.4%, were sent to the prosecutor to consider charges.
“If they sent me another 1,000 property crimes a year I would do them,” Baker said. “I would file them… It’s not because they are lazy or that they don’t care. It’s because they aren’t solving them.”
Consider burglaries. In 2023 there were 2,757 burglaries reported to police. Of those, 239 cases were sent to the prosecutor’s office. Out of those, 163 cases, or 65%, were filed.
Data provided by the Kansas City Police Department illustrates how difficult it is to solve property crimes. In its 2022 report, the police department shows a breakdown of reported crimes and cases it cleared.
- Less than 11% of destruction/damage/vandalism cases were cleared.
- Less than 8% of burglary/breaking and entering cases were cleared by the police.
- And less than 1% of theft from motor vehicle cases were cleared.
Police use the standard of having probable cause to make an arrest. A prosecutor’s office is a check on the power of law enforcement.
“Many decisions come down to the prosecutor’s sense of what justice requires in the case at hand,” according to online legal site Nolo.com, which tries to use everyday language to explain legal processes. “Prosecutors are supposed to both enforce the law and ‘do justice.’”
Baker said that sometimes patrol officers will believe a case has been made because they have recovered a stolen auto. But the case is then handed to a detective who may or may not be able to build a case against a suspect who can be arrested.
Further, the prosecutor’s office has the discretion to decide whether to pursue a case only if the evidence is determined to be sufficient to prove a suspect guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
For instance, Baker said if the prosecutor decides that police have arrested the wrong suspect, no charges will be filed.
Or a prosecutor can file greater or lesser charges than a law enforcement agency has made in building the case.
Regarding serious crimes like homicide, Baker said her office has generally agreed with local detectives in bringing charges. One exception has been in cases where her office has believed that the suspect had a convincing case of self-defense. In recent years, the Missouri legislature has expanded the self-defense statute, making it more difficult to go ahead with some cases where a defendant can use such a defense.
Candidates offer their own plans
Still, the candidates have offered plans for how they would refocus the prosecutor’s office.
Johnson, currently the director of public safety under Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, plans to create a property crimes unit in the office, staffing it with law students.
Burton, during the KCPBS taping, said that going after even the cases that seem like “low-hanging fruit” is important.
“Because if we don’t charge it, then it lets that criminality escalate,” she said. “Because it starts with breaking into the car and stealing a gun. Then that gun is used in a murder, a robbery, a carjacking, and things that escalate.”
Kansas City police provide the greatest number of cases to the prosecutor’s office. But the county also works with eastern Jackson County and the law enforcement for Independence, Lee’s Summit, Raytown, Grandview, Blue Springs, Greenwood, Lake Lotawana, Levasy, Lone Jack, Sugar Creek and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Most cases processed and tried by the prosecutor’s office are felonies. Misdemeanors are managed through the Municipal Court by city prosecutors.
Baker’s office also notes that it “annually receives a wide variety of cases including but not limited to violent crimes, domestic violence, fraud and white-collar crimes, sex crimes, property crimes, traffic/DWI, drug court and child support cases.”
Both the prosecutor’s office and area law enforcement generate a massive amount of data.
Both Baker and Kansas City Chief of Police Stacey Graves have emphasized the use of data to inform the work of law enforcement and prosecutors.
The national nonprofit Measures for Justice will also be compiling information from the Jackson County prosecutor’s office, giving the public another view into the office.
The office will also keep tracking the cases on a publicly available dashboard, which will allow for internal reviews and oversight.
Data from Kansas City police also show another factor affecting prosecutions.
Arrests in general have plummeted numerically during the past decade. Fewer arrests mean fewer suspects and fewer cases.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that crime isn’t being solved or that every arrest would necessarily lead police to solving a crime. The city’s municipal court handles many lower-level crimes and includes the specialty courts that can help people with drug addictions, mental health and cases involving veterans.
Gromowsky has also noted that the number of cases presented to the prosecutor’s office is affected by the shortage of police officers, which is a national trend due to many factors, including retiring baby boomers.
The Kansas City department currently has 1,086 officers, a steep drop from the 1,400 total that’s considered fully staffed.
“We are on a comeback,” Graves told the crowd gathered at a public safety forum this week hosted by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.
Recruiting and retention have both improved since starting wages were raised, Graves said.
In September, there will be three classes of cadets attending the regional police academy, an uptick that includes 27 officers who are transferring into Kansas City from other law enforcement agencies.
Property crimes are personal
Two of the prosecutor candidates, Gromowsky and Burton, have recently faced the anguish that can come with a property crime.
Burton recently discovered two bullets had been shot through the window of her office at 1125 Grand Blvd.
She called the police and was put on hold, through a non-emergency line for about 30 minutes. She later called back.
“They told me that they’re so short-staffed, if I would just go and dig the bullets out of the wall,” she said. “It shows you the state of where we are right now.”
Property crimes like car break-ins affect more people. Even Gromowsky recently had his car glass shattered, with thieves picking through the car’s contents.
“When I woke up this morning, I discovered that two of my car windows had been smashed out,” he posted to his campaign page. “A video shows at least two people broke into six-to-seven cars on my block overnight.”
He noted that he and his wife are lucky because they could afford the repairs, and that property crimes can be difficult to solve, even when police are able to come to the scene, as happened in this case.
Baker said that she understands the personal nature of even low-level property crimes.
She noted that even when a stolen car is returned in good condition, people sometimes say they want to sell it, because it is a private space that’s been violated.
“It violates your personal security,” Baker said.
Julie Freijat contributed. This story was originally published by Flatland, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
