It’s been a week since D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb came into office, and by his own admission it’s been a whirlwind to get up to speed on all the work the hundreds of attorneys in the office do in representing both the city and the public interest in court. We recently sat down with Schwalb to talk about his priorities, his view of the office he now occupies, and his relationship with Mayor Muriel Bowser. Portions of the conversation, which have been lightly edited for clarity, are included below.

On his priorities in office

“I’m thinking about how we uplift and protect young people. How do we keep people safe? That’s part of the core public safety mission of the attorney general’s office as the chief juvenile prosecutor. Focusing on equity issues, how do we make sure everybody across the city gets a chance to share in the prosperity of our city in narrowing those gaps in wealth and income disparity that we have? And third is really dealing with some of the core Democratic challenges we’ve got today. Jan. 6 is a tough day for all of us who live in the District of Columbia and are thinking back a couple of years ago about what occurred. But it’s not just fighting for democracy and voting rights. We also have to think about protecting reproductive freedoms. We have to deal with the fact that white supremacy and hate and anti-Semitism are all on the rise. And when I talk to people across the District of Columbia, that’s on their minds, they want to see their attorney general stand up for those principles,” he said.

On protecting D.C. consumers

When Schwalb’s predecessor Karl Racine became the city’s first elected attorney general in 2014, he says he found an office that had a small team of lawyers working on consumer protection issues. He spent his eight years in office building up that team, and the results were evident in the wide range of consumer protection lawsuits the city filed, taking on everyone from Big Tech giants like Facebook and Amazon to local contractors and slumlords. Schwalb, who Racine endorsed, says he wants to continue much of that consumer protection work, as well as find ways to expand it.

“Consumer protection is a hugely important role for the office because so often people who are being taken advantage of are folks who wouldn’t necessarily have the means or the voice to fight for themselves. And our office is there to fight for the individuals, but also because we’re going to change behavior in the way people across the city may be taken advantage of. I think [of] expanding the areas in which we do protect consumers into areas, new areas in technology, new areas in commerce where people can be taken advantage of. We’re going to be there to protect them. We’re going to also think about expanding the platform we have nationally when we have the types of issues that are happening nationally really hurting people in the District of Columbia. I think that’s important because it protects people who live here in the District. It also strengthens our claim to be a state when we’re a thought leader on the national stage in addressing some of the most difficult issues facing Americans across the country that furthers the evidence for why we should be the 51st state,” he said.

On those lawsuits against the Washington Commanders

Amongst Racine’s final acts in office were a pair of lawsuits against the Washington Commanders for allegedly deceiving D.C. consumers and cheating them out of deposits for season tickets. The lawsuits raised some eyebrows, largely in how they pushed the boundaries of the city’s consumer protection laws. Schwalb hasn’t yet decided whether he will continue the litigation, but he says that he will be reviewing every lawsuit and investigation started before he took office.

“I have a high level of confidence in lawyers and professionals in the office that cases that have been pursued. There was a good-faith basis in fact and in law to pursue them. So that’s my starting point. I think that part of the problem with an overly politicized office of attorney general is people think the law should change and depend on who the elected attorney general is. The law should be consistent and predictable, regardless of who the attorney general is. That said, I am newly elected. It is incumbent upon me to independently assess the cases and the investigations going on in the office, ones that have not yet been filed and ones that have already been filed and bring some independent judgment to that. And I certainly will do that,” he said.

Schwalb said he would similarly review Racine’s past decisions to stop representing the D.C. Department of Corrections in court, as well as city agencies in zoning cases.

On the overhaul of D.C.’s criminal code

Schwalb was quick to make news on his second day on the job last week, writing on Twitter that he supports the sweeping overhaul of the D.C. criminal code that was unanimously passed by the D.C. Council late last year. His announcement came shortly after Mayor Muriel Bowser said she would veto the bill over concerns that the overhaul could decrease some criminal penalties. (She discussed her concerns with the bill last Friday on WAMU 88.5’s “The Politics Hour.”)

“The reform effort was long overdue. It was an effort that involved a lot of voices, a lot of legislation, negotiation, smart minds, community input, and ultimately led to a bill that made uniform what used to be non-uniform and erratic, brought into the modern area era things that were really antiquated. And so as a result, I think the net result was our city is going to be safer and the administration of justice is going to be fairer with that new law in place. And so I thought it was important, as the chief law officer of the city, as somebody who I think is elected to be the chief thought leader on issues of law and justice in the city, to speak out, that I think that should be the law of the District of Columbia,” he said.

“I think that one of the things we have to talk honestly about is whether or not increasing penalties is going to make us safer. One of the things the reform bill does is it makes consistent across charges some of the sentencing. So when you have inconsistency in potential sentencing, you can have unfair outcomes. And so I think making the law consistent around penalties doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re lowering the penalties. It means that we’re thinking more in a consistent way,” he said.

“But we also should remember that while sometimes it’s easy to think about a quick answer, the types of criminal justice challenges we have in Washington didn’t happen overnight. They’re not going to get solved overnight. And the idea that increasing punishment and sanction is going to make us safer is something that I’m not sure the data or our history confirms. In fact, I think if we learn from our history, we know that oftentimes by trying to be very tough on crime and locking people up, we didn’t make ourselves safer as a community. Just the opposite. So I think we got to learn from our lessons and our history and try to all be striving towards the goal of making sure D.C. is safer. Sometimes that requires a smart on crime approach, not necessarily a tough on crime approach,” he said.

On juvenile crime and justice

Unlike in most cities and states, D.C.’s attorney general has a narrow and limited role in public safety — the office largely handles juvenile crimes, while the U.S. Attorney for D.C. prosecutes almost all other violent crime. Still, the issue of kids committing crimes has gotten more attention recently, especially last year when the number of kids killed in shooting spiked. Schwalb says he’ll take his responsibility to hold youth offenders accountable seriously, but thinks that that tough-on-crime attitudes towards kids won’t make the city safer.

“I think that any time you have young people in the city that are victims of crime, gun violence, anytime you have young people who are committing violent crime, it’s unacceptable. I think when we talk about crime being out of control, the data doesn’t really support that when we’re talking about young people. Historically, low levels of juvenile crime [are] occurring in our city. But as I said, any crime committed by a young person, any crime committed against a young person is one crime too many,” he said.

“I actually heard the mayor during her inaugural speech saying, we have to recognize that a lot of these kids who are victims of crimes and who are committing crimes are in bad shape. They need help. And I agree with that. I mean, I think we need to remember we’re talking about kids and we need to make sure we’re giving kids resources and room to be kids even when they make terrible, terrible mistakes. Now, my office will do its job in terms of prosecuting juvenile crime and holding kids accountable. The law has to work and we will do that. But we also have to remember that prosecution, by definition, is always after the fact. It’s always after a crime has occurred. And we also have to think about how do we stop crimes before they happen? That’s how we’ll truly make ourselves safer,” he said.

“I also think that accountability and that language that we use is really important to remember. It should be a two-way street. We do have to hold kids accountable, but we also have to hold the system accountable that when we commit to rehabilitation and we bring kids into the system and to commit them to [the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services] that they’re getting the resources that they need so that they do emerge from the system safer, healthier, more hopeful so that they don’t recidivate. It’s good for them, but in the long run, it makes us safer as a city,” he said.

On his relationship with Bowser

Prior to 2014, the city’s attorney general was appointed by the mayor. Since then, though, the office has been elected by residents and fully independent. Advocates say that’s for the best, and Schwalb says he largely agrees. He says it’s inevitable that he will disagree or clash with Bowser, but he doesn’t see that as a bug in the system — but rather a feature.

“I think that people who live in the District of Columbia who vote and who pay taxes deserve a government that works. And the way government works best is when an office of attorney general and an office of mayor are working together with one another to tackle the kind of objectives that the voters who voted for both of us expect us to deliver on. We are an independent office of attorney general. That was a major structural change in our government that happened back in 2010, implemented in 2014. And any time you have an independent attorney general, it means that there’s the possibility, probably even the probability, that [at] times the mayor and the attorney general will disagree on things. I think that’s healthy. I think that’s part of what a good check and balance in government has. But we always have to remember that we can disagree without being disagreeable, and we have to remember who we are serving, and that’s the people who voted for us. So I think that it’s important for there to be collaboration, a good level of communication between the mayor’s office and my office, and I’m committed to that. I think the mayor is, too,” he said.