Yesterday, headlines broke that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had endorsed Tiffany Cabán for the Queens County district attorney race. If Cabán wins, the nearly two and a half million residents of Queens will be able to claim not just one, but two democratic socialist politicians of national significance.

Cabán is also joining a class of socialist and progressive activists running not for traditional political office, but for positions in the United States’ criminal justice system, hoping to transform it from within.

This of course includes Larry Krasner, the former civil rights lawyer who sued the police seventy-five times before running for Philadelphia DA. Seven months after he took office, Philadelphia’s jail population decreased by 21 percent. But the role — the ACLU has called district attorneys “the most powerful people in the criminal justice system” — has also landed Krasner in positions that put him at odds with movement activists, like when his office initially opposed Mumia Abu-Jamal’s appeal, before eventually letting it go forward.