The issue in the Maricopa County attorney race isn't competence. It's direction

The race for Maricopa County attorney is a rarity in this year’s Arizona midterm election packed with conspiracy theorists, election deniers and white supremacists.

None of that applies to the two women seeking to lead Maricopa County's prosecutorial agency, the state's largest. Both Republican Rachel Mitchell, the interim chief, and Democratic challenger Julie Gunnigle are sensible, smart and personable.

Voters are tasked with deciding the kind of criminal justice system Maricopa County residents ought to have.

Mitchell put the troubled agency first

To that end, it is imperative that voters first examine the system that has one of the nation’s highest incarceration rates per capita and has been mired in scandals in recent years, from backlogged DUI cases and bogus gang charges against protesters to nearly 200 botched criminal cases and the disbarment of a prominent prosecutor.

And those are just the latest scandals that have roiled the agency and forced the departure of County Attorney Allister Adel, who tragically passed away a short time afterward. Mitchell was appointed to fill the position until voters decide Nov. 8 on a successor to serve the remainder of Adel’s term.

Mitchell points out that she was among the division chiefs in the office who called on Adel to resign over sobriety issues and her inability to lead the 1,000-employee agency. In doing so, Mitchell showed leadership and determination to put the agency on the right footing above everything else.

The question before voters isn’t competence but rather the direction and the role prosecutors should play in administering justice and to help maintain peace and order in the county of 4.4 million residents.

Gunnigle wants to reform the system

For decades, the county attorney’s office has been led by Republicans — mostly men — who have taken a tough-on-crime approach with little or no leniency for alternative sentencing for lesser felonies. That has led to a huge prison population, which Gunnigle and others say is turned into forced labor to enrich a few private companies that hire prisoners on the cheap.

Gunnigle, who has worked mostly in the private sector with a few years of prosecutorial experience in Indiana and Illinois, has a detailed plan for how she would reform the agency to root out “corruption” and set up a more “just system” where people have a real shot at rehabilitation instead of languishing in prison or being let out eventually with little likelihood of successful reintegration.

3 takeaways: From the Maricopa County Attorney's Office debate

In other words, she wants an overhaul of how justice should be pursued to protect victims but also deal with the root causes that for years have fueled a steady prison pipeline. She favors partnerships with other organizations to provide a host of social-service programs to reduce recidivism.

Gunnigle seeks to set up an independent unit to hold prosecutors and police accused of wrongdoing accountable. This is especially important after the recent scandal involving prosecutors colluding with Phoenix officers to charge street protesters as criminal gang members, cases which were later dismissed and resulted in a firing and demotions in both agencies as well as multimillion-dollar lawsuits.

Mitchell doesn’t see the need for such a unit and prefers to review cases individually. Instead, she said there’s a critical partnership between law enforcement and the County Attorney’s Office but added, “That doesn’t mean not holding police officers accountable when they commit crimes.”

She blasts Gunnigle’s approach as nothing more than a way to target and defund the police and let criminals off the hook. Mitchell says restoring trust in the system requires prosecutors to work closely with police.

Mitchell also pushes back against the notion that the office seeks only to put away people on lengthy sentences. She says under Adel and now her, the office gives prosecutors the latitude to balance justice and redemption.

They disagree on most everything else

The two disagree on everything from advocating to get rid of mandatory minimum sentencing laws to eliminating “cash bail” to the prosecution of abortion cases.

Gunnigle said she would not prosecute anyone under Arizona's two restrictive abortion laws while Mitchell said she would determine cases based on, among other factors, likelihood of conviction and would be lenient largely in cases of rape or incest.

Gunnigle wants to reduce recidivism by treating drug addiction and drug offenses as a public health crisis and helping those people get out of prison to reenter society and the workforce. Mitchell would continue to focus on crime victims, she said.

Gunnigle pledges a more transparent office and to “immediately rehire the dozens of experienced prosecutors who left due to chronic lack of leadership, scandals and ineptitude, and begin building a culture of accountability that values prosecutors doing justice.”

Mitchell said she’s already doing that and that the office is on target to fill most of those vacancies.

Want the status quo or something different?

It’s apparent that in Mitchell, Maricopa County residents can count on an attorney who would follow similar prosecutorial lines as her Republican predecessors — perhaps with a gentler touch but with the similar results, notably a continued crowded prison population.

Gunnigle would be radically different than the conservatives who have managed the prosecutorial agency, whose duties include providing legal advice to other county agencies such as the Board of Supervisors.

The choices are clear. In Mitchell, county residents can expect conservative approaches that have played out for decades. In Gunnigle, residents can envision a system with a focus that shifts away from merely locking people up.

The vote in this race comes down to the kind of prosecutorial system residents deserve or want: the status quo or something different.

This is an opinion of The Arizona Republic's editorial board.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Maricopa County attorney election is about direction, not competence