When Shelby Countys top prosecutor, Amy Weirich , was running for reelection in 2014, she declared , I dont apologize for being tough on crime. In the years that followed, she lived up to that pledge. Over a long tenure as the top law enforcement official in a large Tennessee county that includes Memphis, Weirich has aggressively pursued violent and petty crime cases and cast herself as an unabashedly pro-police district attorney.

Her office declined to bring charges against police officers who shot or killed people in Shelby County. It disproportionately locked up Black people, who make up 54% of Shelby Countys population and 85% of the people in the countys jails. The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed multiple convictions secured by her office, and Harvard Laws Fair Punishment Project found she engaged in more prosecutorial misconduct than any other district attorney in Tennessee.

This fall, Weirich, a Republican, will face voters in this Democratic-leaning county for the first time in eight years. The election will be a referendum on her tough-on-crime agenda: Her Democratic opponent, Steven Mulroy, has advocated for a shift in Memphis criminal justice system and supports reform efforts such as establishing units to review prison sentences.

Its not just a question of philosophies. In 2020, Memphis reached its highest homicide total on record. The city broke that record again last year. Spikes in violent crime have vastly complicated the politics around criminal justice, and often the crime rate has been used as a cudgel against progressive, reform-minded prosecutors. This was shown true after San Francisco voters elected to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin , one of the countrys most progressive top prosecutors. Boudins effort was centered around reforming the citys criminal justice system, including actions such as ending cash bail and stopping the prosecution of minors as adults along with being the first DA in the citys history to file homicide charges against police officers. Weirich sells herself as being tough on crime, but how will voters react when the crime rate has gone up anyway?