This is a busy election year, and, judging by the length of the ballot going out to them, the plebiscitary demands on the voters in Colorado are considerable. Expectantly, the contests for president, Senate, and certain ballot measures are receiving the bulk of the limelight, but considerable attention ought to be paid to local district attorney races.

DA elections are perennially underrated, but they take on a particularly grave importance this year. One risks courting hyperbole with such statements, but even a cursory review of the contemporary scene suggests the importance of electing the right people for the top law enforcement posts in the state.

The convulsive events of the past summer have generated cries from some noisy corners for various iterations of criminal justice reform, generally translated as antagonistic efforts directed against police, and enforcement of the law in general. It stands to reason, to the extent that reason is employed in such endeavors, that that antagonism would extend to the prosecutorial arm.

At its extremes, left-wing ideology views the entirety of society as a massive system of oppression — labeled variably as capitalism, systemic racism, patriarchy or what have you — liberation from which is the sole purpose of being. Society’s laws are, therefore, necessarily a construct and tool of the oppressive system, designed to keep whichever oppressed class down; as opposed to, say, provide for order and safety and a framework allowing us all to live together in peace. This is the message of the bottle-throwers in the streets, if you can get past the vulgarity and misspelling of their signs and graffiti (grammar and spelling are also oppressive tools of the bourgeoisie).

This is on the fringes, yes, but the thought behind the ideology is infectious, and creeps into the mainstream, where variants of it are displayed in the platitudes offered in support of the demonstrators’ demands, and against the police trying to restore order and protect the public, not to mention in the proposals being irresponsibly floated about, and in some cases implemented, under the aegis of “police reform,” or “criminal justice reform.”

It is not mere happenstance that the appetite for militant criminal justice reform among Democratic civil leaders coincides with the enormous increase in crime being experienced in Denver, as in other cities across the nation, murder and other violent crime especially. To be sure, the crime rate in Denver has been steadily climbing for about the past seven years, and the increase is not exclusively due to the recent embrace of anti-police policy, but there is no question that Denver is suffering a record spike in crime this year, and the official tolerance for law-breaking and the general environment of disorder it engenders is a significant contributor. We are beginning to see a return, here and elsewhere, to the bleak days of the 1970s, when many inner cities were rendered virtually unlivable by the prevalence of crime. The improvements that we saw starting in the late 1980s and 1990s, brought about by adjustments in our approach to crime control, are now at serious risk as au courant ideological fetishes continue to exert dominance over regard for order and public safety.

The state’s district attorney races are in many ways the front line of this philosophical battle. The contest for the 1st Judicial District DA, in Jefferson and Gilpin counties, is probably the most prominent and, given its size and location in the state, consequential example. The Republican candidate running to succeed the highly esteemed Peter Weir is Matthew Durkin, a bright, experienced, and highly competent prosecutor whose ideas for addressing the growing crime problem and its underlying issues are realistic and workable.

A recent case from that district serves a useful illustration. On April 29, a hit-and-run left Mr. Lakhwant Singh severely injured and hospitalized. The ensuing investigation was complicated by the COVID-19 hospital quarantine measures, but in due course his assailant, Eric Breeman, was charged with 17 counts, including attempted murder and bias-motivated crime.

Well before the investigation was completed, activists, led by Durkin’s opponent, Alexis King, clamored and petitioned for bias-motivated crime charges to be prematurely leveled. That those charges were only filed after a proper and thorough investigation was evidently a problem for King and the activists. This suggests two things: a) King’s concerns lie with optics over process, and b) she believes that mob cries ought to be a basis for filing charges. This brings to mind visions of Robespierre and his guillotine during the heady days of the French Revolution.

Yes, that is perhaps something of an allegorical stretch. But, as we are witnessing, ideological extremism has a nasty habit of infiltration, which is why it must be kept as far from the district attorney’s office as possible.