With Violence Rising, Can a Gentler Prosecutor Keep His Seat?

Larry Krasner, the district attorney who reduced incarceration in Philadelphia, faces a challenger who blames him for a spike in shootings and homicides.

PHILADELPHIA — When Larry Krasner was elected Philadelphia’s district attorney in 2017, his story made him one of the most visible of a new wave of progressive prosecutors: A lawyer who had sued the police for civil rights violations 75 times had become a top law enforcement official in one of America’s largest cities. Mr. Krasner promised to stop prosecuting drug possession and prostitution and to hold the police accountable for misconduct. But even as he wrote a triumphal book about his election and starred in a PBS documentary series, homicides and gun violence in Philadelphia were rising to levels not seen since the 1990s. Now Mr. Krasner, 60, is facing a primary challenge from a veteran prosecutor he fired, who is arguing that Mr. Krasner has made the city less safe.