US Attorney Ison: 'Every person who was saved as a result of our strategy is important'

U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison calls herself a "daughter of Detroit," so, she says, some of the community's stories "are my stories."

While her office works to enforce federal laws that, in the end, may end up landing people in prison, she also wants it to be a resource for the community.

That's why her priorities for 2024, while a bit expanded, have remained steady since she was confirmed to lead the office in December 2021. They have a layered, holistic approach — reduce violent crime and drugs; hold public officials accountable; reinvigorate protection of civil liberties and prosecute civil rights violations; restructure the approach to violent crime, and rebuild community trust with law enforcement.

Next year, she also hopes to focus on children in the Eastern District of Michigan, which encompasses 34 counties, 6.5 million residents and stretches in the eastern half of the Lower Peninsula from the Ohio border up to the Mackinac Bridge and from mid-Michigan to Canada.

Ison's ties to the city, community run deep

Ison said she has a list of high schools for listening sessions in Flint, Bay City, Pontiac and Detroit, and there is a memorandum of understanding with Detroit Public Schools Community District for a project for fifth graders to learn about consequences and the criminal justice system. She said she wants to influence kids to be the best they can be.

"If I have any legacy," the 60-year-old said, "I hope it's empowering communities in a sustainable way after I'm gone."

Ison is marking two years as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, with its main office in downtown Detroit. But her ties to the city and the community run deep.

She attended Detroit Public Schools, including Cass Tech High, before going to Spelman College in Atlanta. She returned to Detroit for law school at Wayne State University.

She said she worked as a criminal defense attorney for 12 years, cutting her teeth in state court, especially at Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in downtown Detroit, primarily representing the indigent community, before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office in 2002.

"Some people say I saw the light," she said from her sunlit, high-rise office with a view of the Detroit River and Windsor.

But she saw the move from defending people to prosecuting them as an opportunity to expand her knowledge of both sides of the legal aisle. She said her role as a defense attorney helped her as a prosecutor to ensure she would have sufficient evidence and plug holes in a case. She worked in the general crimes unit; the drug unit, where she became chief, and then in the public corruption unit (now called the public corruption and civil rights unit) for about seven years before she was elevated to lead the office.

As the public face of the office, Ison said she wanted to bring her professional experience and lived experience into her new public servant role. She wanted to help the community and "be a voice for people like me and for people like my mother."

Ison's father was murdered when she was 9 years old. Her mother, a postal worker, then raised Ison and her brothers, a personal story she did not reveal to many until after she became the U.S. attorney.

"We cannot enforce our way out of this. We need the community," she said, later adding: "So many communities suffer in silence."

142 pandemic fraud cases in eastern Michigan

The U.S. Sentencing Commission report for fiscal year 2022 indicated there were 719 were people sentenced in the Eastern District of Michigan, with the top three offenses being firearms, fraud/theft/embezzlement and drugs. Ison said the statistics could be somewhat skewed because charges on the highest-level crimes were used in the report.

Nonetheless, her office has been busy prosecuting all of these types of cases, with some high-profile convictions in recent years, including former Macomb County elected officials, ex-Prosecutor Eric Smith and former Public Works Commissioner Anthony Marrocco, as well as convictions this month of leaders in the Seven Mile Bloods and Almighty Vice Lord Nation gangs.

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Ison said her office also has handled a large number of COVID-19 fraud cases, with 142 such cases charged since the pandemic began in 2020. Of those, 78 were resolved through a plea or trial, she said, and 54 were sentenced. So far this year, 52 such cases have been filed, she said, with eight resolved and five people sentenced. Those sentenced are getting prison time, she said.

Ison said her main priority is to make the community the safest it can be and reduce violent crime, not just in Detroit but throughout the Eastern District that she serves.

She said a small number of people, a small number of groups and small clusters of places contribute to the vast majority of violent crime, and her office and other partners are focusing on the drivers of crime. Last year, she said, their efforts brought more than 50% reductions in violent crime in Saginaw, Pontiac and Flint.

The outreach combines punishment with prevention.

For example, she said the "One Eastern District of Michigan Violence Reduction Strategy" involves executive committees in locations with the highest incidents of violent crime — Detroit, Saginaw, Pontiac and Flint. The effort involves partnerships tailored to each location, including not just law enforcement but faith-based leaders, community leaders and focused deterrence leaders. The effort started with "One Detroit," she said, but is moving to "One Flint" and "One Pontiac."

Ison said her prosecutors also are in a half-dozen precincts in Detroit in an effort to help determine which cases should be prosecuted in federal court to make the biggest impact, as well as advocating for quality of life issues, such as encouraging the razing of a burned-out house that was the source and scene of a number of crimes. She said environmental justice is a top priority — and is a public safety issue.

In addition to the enforcement and prevention pillars in her office's strategy, she said a reentry pillar helps remove barriers for returning citizens in an effort to prevent recidivism, making the community safer.

The last two summers, she said, officials focused on areas where violent spikes may occur.

Through data, Ison said the office identified the most violent places in Detroit, the 8th and 9th Precincts. In the first year, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, she said her office partnered with the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office to triage cases, particularly felons in possession of firearms, and charge those people in federal court. The next year, they expanded to prosecute in other cases in these same precincts, such as carjackings and those with firearms with obliterated serial numbers, in an effort to reduce violence in the neighborhoods.

'Everybody counts'

In addition to enforcement, the office held "Peacenics" — picnics in the 8th and 9th Precincts with games and vendors such as the secretary of state to help people overcome the obstacles of getting a driver's license. The second year, she said, more than 5,000 people combined attended the "Peacenic" held in each precinct, which included food and entertainment; health, dental and vaccine mobiles, and a thrift boutique.

During the same period, Ison said, reentry letters were sent to 200 people on federal supervised release and state probation warning them to put down their guns and also inviting them to attend a roundtable with service providers and resources for returning citizens in an effort to help them make better choices.

Ison said violent crime was reduced 18.69% in the 8th Precinct and 11.16% in the 9th Precinct during that period.

"We are encouraged by those numbers. We know we still have work to do," she said, adding that Detroit is being lauded nationally for its efforts.

"Those numbers might not sound big, but those numbers represent bodies. And every single person who was saved as a result of our strategy is important. Because everybody counts. Everybody counts. Every family affected counts. So, we'll continue to work, whether it's one or 1,000 that we save. We'll continue to work to improve that number because everybody counts."

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @challreporter.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: US Attorney Dawn Ison: Reducing violent crime a top priority in 2024