Darcel Clark facing first primary as district attorney

For the first time since she assumed office in 2016, District Attorney Darcel Clark faces a challenger in a Democratic primary. That is in the person of criminal defense and civil rights attorney Tess Cohen. In an interview with The Riverdale Press, Clark says she applauds Cohen for wanting to run, but says she does not have the level of experience that she herself has acquired over 37 years as an assistant DA, judge, and DA.

“You need to have the relationships with elected officials and government. You have to have the relationships with community partners,” Clark said. “But most importantly, you got to have the relationship with the people of the Bronx. You got to know the Bronx. I don’t have to learn it, I live it every day, and I have my whole life.”

The Bronx has always had a close spot in Clark’s heart. Growing up in public housing at Soundview Houses in the South Bronx, Clark learned community “more than anything else.” Her father worked in the same housing project she lived in and her mother was a part of the PTA, board of elections, and president of the tenants association.

As a kid Clark learned the struggles of addiction by seeing her father suffer from alcoholism. It wasn’t easy having people see her father suffering, but she realized it was nothing to be embarrassed about but something for which he needed help.

Clark was inspired to go to college after several people told her she should be a lawyer since she always fought for people and understood when people needed help. Not having any family members who had attended or graduated college, Clark sought out a guidance counselor at Harry S. Truman High School.

Upon telling her she wanted to be a lawyer the counselor instead suggested she become a secretary according to Clark. This did not sit well with Clark and she found a community based organization that helped her with the college application process and took her on a trip to Boston College.

“Everybody told me you can’t go to Boston,” Clark said. “It’s 1979, schools were still being desegregated in Boston at that time. So for a young Black girl to go to Boston was like ‘why would you go there?’ And when they told me that, I was like ‘okay, not only am I going to go to college because this lady told me I can’t go to college, I’m going to college and I’m going to Boston because you told me not to go there.’” 

Clark received an undergraduate in political science from Boston College and has been on the board of the trustees for 25 years. Following her time at Boston she went to Washington, D.C., to attend Howard University of Law School. When it was over she knew she had to come back to the Bronx and commit to public service.

In 1986 Clark was hired as Assistant DA for Mario Merola and then her predecessor Robert Johnson in 1988. She described how the city was different in the 1980s, filled with high crime and crack cocaine use approaching its peak. Public safety meant arresting and prosecuting everybody for maximum sentences.

After spending 16 years on the bench as a judge, Clark stepped down to become DA after Johnson resigned just one week after winning his primary to become a state judge. Clark beat her Republican opponent in the general election and officially became DA in 2016.

Clark said she knew things had to be done differently from how they were in the 1980s. People had to look at the root causes of crime and why people were coming into the criminal justice system in the first place. In many of those cases, she said, the answer is poverty, joblessness, homelessness, food insecurity, mental health, and substance abuse.

“The thing that I do most is prevention,” Clark said, “to make sure we keep people from coming into the system. That means get them jobs, the mental health treatment that they need, substance use disorder, stable housing.”

The thing that DA’s do now, Clark said, is intervention, meaning when people do come into the criminal justice system they have to do a proper assessment and determine whether to treat or charge someone.

Clark built a program with the Osborne Association — The Osborne Gun Accountability and Prevention Program — that gives first time gun offenders the opportunity to turn their lives around. It’s a 12 months long where they teach job readiness, counseling for trauma, and anti-violence preparation. The defendants plead guilty to a felony, go through programming and, if successful, end up with a misdemeanor.

As for prosecution, Clark says she will hold accountable those who bring harm to the community by either killing, sexually assaulting, and violating others.

“People are going to go to prison and jail in my administration because that is what is deserved in those particular cases,” Clark said.

For re-entry, Clark’s office works with the department of community service and parole to make sure they have the resources they need in order to be successful.

Clark said she is most proud of the way they’ve brought humanity into the criminal justice system and changed the way they look at the criminal justice system through a lens that looks at who the person is, how they got there, and what justice is for them and the community.

Clark says the most pressing issue to the office right now is violence. She cited a case where an innocent 11-year-old-girl was killed by a 15-year-old boy riding on the back of a scooter driven by an 18-year-old. The intended target was 13 and was a purported gang member.

“Everybody loses in that case,” Clark said. “That 11-year-old-girl will never grow up. She was a beautiful soul. The 13-year-old purported gang member, unless he makes some different choices in his life, where’s he going to end up? Either dead or in prison. The 15-year-old, his life is ruined because now he’s charged with murder for picking up a gun and the 18-year-old acting in consorts with him already is part of that process.”

The solution to the violence, Clark says, is prevention and putting more resources into the Bronx. She said the safest communities don’t have the most police, but rather the most resources.

When it comes to mental illness, Clark says criminalizing it is not the way to go. Instead they should have solutions like therapeutic secure settings for people accused of crimes instead of letting them languish behind bars without assistance. The largest facility to handle mentally ill prisoners is Rikers Island, which Clark admits is “not the right place.”

Clark is in support of Riker’s Island being closed in 2027 because of it being “old” and “dysfunctional.” She believes smaller community jails are best practice, but in the meantime they must deal with the Riker’s Island they have now.   

When Clark took over she put an office on Rikers Island to make investigations in real time easier. In her eight years as DA she’s seen four corrections commissioners. She said anytime they were starting to move in a good direction a new commissioner would come and they would have to start all over again.

Her focus is on reducing the violence there with initiatives like the violence and sexual assault initiatives. The Riker’s Island Prosecution Bureau deals with the corruption side, DOC and officers that may use excessive force, contraband by visitors, and inmate on inmate crime.   

On a weekly basis Clark reviews every single person that is incarcerated in Bronx cases. She says that no one at Rikers Island is there on a low-level non-violent case. 

Of the five counties, the Bronx has the lowest rates of incarcerations with the exception of Staten Island, according to Clark. 

“I can see the humanity in people, because I lived it,” Clark said. “When I look at the people in the Bronx, their faces, I see myself because I am one of them. Been here my whole life, 61 years. There’s not a corner of this county that I haven’t been in or haven’t met someone from. Because I know that I have to have an impact on the lives of everybody in this county. You got to understand them to do this work.”

Clark says voters should vote for her again because “the work is not done.”

“I want to use the power of my office and my voice to continue to fight for resources for the Bronx,” Clark said. “I’m tired of us being first in everything bad, and last in everything good. So I’m going to continue to work on behalf of every Bronxite and their community.”

A Democratic primary between Clark and Cohen will be held Tuesday, June 27.