With less than a week until Election Day, Democrat Sean Teare is looking to maintain a lead in the race for Harris County district attorney.

Teare, who unseated incumbent Kim Ogg during the primary earlier this year, is currently ahead of Republican Dan Simons in the polls, according to the latest survey from the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston. The poll shows Teare leading by 14 points: 52% to 38%.

As time runs out, his goal is to attract the 10% of undecided voters who could play a critical role in the outcome of the race. In a recent conversation with Houston Public Media, Teare discussed how he plans to reform the district attorney’s office if elected.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

So tell me, why do you want to be the next Harris County District Attorney?

I have been inside the office as an intern or prosecutor for 13 years. Frankly, I saw the failures of the office.

I saw that I was not only failing the victims and their families, but also law enforcement. He was failing the defendants. I was failing the community as a whole, through mismanagement, through the hemorrhaging of good career prosecutors, and I thought, and know, that I can do better.

Develop more on that. What would you change in the district attorney’s office if elected?

What we are going to change first is our intake division, the way we accept charges from authorities, because it has people who have never been prosecutors before.

Let’s change that. We are going to bring experience back to that division. That will manifest itself in every aspect of our office: in the number of charges we file, in the caliber of charges we file, and in the time from arrest to resolution of the case.

And eventually we will need more prosecutors. The Commissioners Court is aware of this. Everyone knows this, but until we right the ship at the office, it’s throwing a lot of money away. You know, we can’t keep people there long enough to train them right now.

So once we fix the culture, once we fix admission, then we’ll look at a long-term plan for growth within the office, which will not be for more cases, but for faster disposition. of those we have.

Just to clarify: are you saying you would be more selective in which cases you pursue?

It’s more selective, but it’s also beefing up cases before arrest. So yes, the charges will likely go down, but they will be different than what we are seeing right now.

The Harris County Jail has been overcrowded and understaffed for several years. How do you see the district attorney’s role in that?

The DA’s office is the reason we have a humanitarian crisis in jail.

We decide who goes to that jail, period. The DA’s office is the main reason people stay in custody for so long.

Once you see that the intake division works and accepts charges in a much more manageable way, once you see that the court prosecutors have the discretion to make decisions again, those two things will come together to help make our stay in the county jail much easier. shorter.

The Harris County Jail has become a warehouse for human beings. It can’t be that, the county jail should be a way station to the next step.

My last question is this: why should people vote for you?

I think I’m in a unique position in the history of Harris County and, frankly, maybe in the country, to walk into an office the size of the Harris County Attorney’s Office and be ready to lead immediately.

I have supervised hundreds of prosecutors within that same office. I have already been in charge of large portions of that office’s budget. I have been a line prosecutor for years and years and years too. I’m ready to go.

I already have the trust of the office. I already have discernible plans and policies in writing and on record. This is what I want to do.

I want to restore integrity and create the largest office in this country.