As a career public defender trumpeting sweeping restorative changes to the Queens District Attorney’s office, candidate Tiffany Cabán assumed a decisive stance against the decriminalizing of poverty and mass incarcerations at a Feb. 23 meet-and-greet in Rockaway Beach.

During an informal gathering hosted by the Rockaway Revolution action group, the Richmond Hill-born public defender explained a new approach she would bring to the borough’s DA position entailing the implementation of a slew of transformational policies.

Chief among them would be altering the metrics of success instilled by past administrations that focused primarily on prosecutions, convictions and sentences. Cabán denounced the DA’s office modus operandi of instilling “punishment for the sake of being punitive.”

Her metamorphic plan would, instead, reward her staff for reducing recidivism through “decarcerating” the prison system and injecting “fairness” into the process.

“The way that real reform happens is that it can’t be done ad-hoc and in pieces. You have to have all these things happening at once to be able to make that change. What your talking about is the idea that we continue to criminalize poverty. We continue to criminalize folks who are struggling to survive,” she said when replying to a question about single parents who can’t make bail.

“My view is we need to end cash bail because there can’t be two systems of justice. One where if you got enough money, you get to fight your case from the outside, and if you don’t, you’re screwed.”

Furthermore, she spoke in favor of “giving people a fighting chance” in lieu of the bail system by supplying them with a cell phone and MetroCard to facilitate their trip to court.

In response to The Wave’s request to elaborate on her designs to depopulate city jail cells of individuals serving time for non-violent offenses, Cabán informed this writer that many drug abusers are being misguided into serving more time instead of receiving real help.

In fact, the guest speaker spoke from experience when recounting the dilemma faced by one client, an opioid user, who resorted to stealing cell phones to support his drug habit. The defendant was ultimately sentenced to a 3.5-to-7-year prison term and ordered to partake in a drug-diversion program.

“What a lot of folks don’t know is that you plead guilty upfront and sign a contract. If you mess up in this program, [they’re] going to sentence you for these non-violent thefts to not just 3.5-to-7 years of upstate prison, but to 3.5-to-7 years consecutive. If he messed up this program, he was facing 7-15 years,” added the one-time Legal Aid Society litigator.

The suspect in question, she said, suffered a relapse and was another example of people being thrown into jail without any resources. Many of these same people, she offered, come out worse off than when they came in.

At various junctures during her hour-long conversation at the First Congregational Church, Cabán touted her strategy to include the public in the decision-making process in relation to the fate of Rikers Island−− if and when it closes−−and would also welcome the input of her constituents on how millions in federal asset forfeitures are spent.

On that note, she also mentioned how she would engage communities on fighting gun violence.

“There’s a model that Cure Violence puts out. What they found was in the jurisdictions where the DA’s office decided to allow specific communities to dictate what the policy was on gun violence, gun violence went down a ton. It was more than when the DA’s office tried to do it on their own,” said the veteran public defender, who holds degrees from Penn State and New York Law School.

“Again, it goes back to the idea that communities know themselves best, what they need best. They know what kind of support they need and that’s the kind of approach we need to bring to the DA’s office. It’s not just about diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration.”

In that spirit, those in attendance learned of an idea she’s considering involving the design of a Queens District Attorney’s app that would open the lines of communication to the public. It would, in essence, help the prosecutor’s office build an investigation without calling in police to secure indictments.

Cabán is spearheading a grassroots campaign that is turning away all corporate monies and solely counting on individual donations to help spread her message. Currently, the progressive change advocate is competing against a number of well-known public officials, including Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, Council Rory Lancman and retired Supreme Court Justice Greg Lasak, among others, in what could be a highly-contested Democratic primary on June 25.

And unlike others preaching grand-scale revisions to how law enforcement is conducted under current Queens DA Richard Brown, Cabán brazenly distinguished herself from the pack by declaring that who she is “matters.”

“I am a queer Latina from a low-income community and that’s not identity politics; that’s just speaking to my understanding around intersectionality and the effects of individual and generational trauma on our communities.”

This relative unknown made quite an impression on members of her small audience, who applauded the candidate and continually nodded in approval throughout the event.  Cabán seems determined to endorse her progressive agenda as an anti-establishment radical who isn’t the least bit concerned if she ruffles some feathers along the way.

“Queens is a place where our population is literally bigger than the population of Philadelphia and Denver combined…it’s bigger than 15 states. So, if we implement this change, we’re affecting a lot of lives.”