Building Relationships Between Communities and Police: What Prosecutors Need to Know

After 28 years as a prosecutor, George D. Mosee, Jr., Esquire retired on December 9, 2016 from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. On January 2, 2017 Mosee was appointed Executive Director of the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network.

At the time of his retirement, Mosee was the First Assistant District Attorney for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Mosee was the Deputy District Attorney in charge of the Juvenile Division for thirteen years. The Juvenile Division included the Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Program, Juvenile Prosecution Unit, Habitual Offender Unit, Child Support Unit and Youth Aid Panels. Mosee joined the office in 1988 and served in various units including Motions, Major Trials, Federal Alternatives to State Trials as a Special Assistant United States Attorney, Asset Forfeiture as Chief, and Chief of the Dangerous Drug Offender Unit. From 1995 to 2002, Mosee was the Deputy District Attorney in charge of the Narcotics Division.

Mosee serves and has served on many boards and committees including the Pennsylvania Juvenile Prosecutors Network as Chair and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s Juvenile Court Procedural Rules Committee as Chair. He is currently the President of the Pennsylvania DMC Youth/Law Enforcement Corporation, Vice-Chair of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Committee, a Commissioner with the Strong Families Commission, and the Mayor’s Commission on Addiction and Recovery.

 Before joining the District Attorney's Office, he was the Judicial Law Clerk to the Honorable Carolyn Engel Temin, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Mosee is a 1973 graduate of Philadelphia’s Central High School.  He received a B.A. in 1977 and master’s degree in 1981 from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and a J.D. in 1986 from Temple University School of Law.

Rhonda McKitten is a consultant specializing in Juvenile Justice Reform with over 20 years of experience in juvenile justice, police reform, and racial equity.  Ms. McKitten is the Project Director for Philadelphia’s Juvenile Assessment Center/Youth Arrest Reform Project, which will provide arrested youth and their families with trauma-responsive interventions and supports after arrest. Ms. McKitten is a former Stoneleigh Fellow for the Philadelphia Police Department, where she worked to improve training and procedures related to youth.  Prior to her work as a Stoneleigh Fellow, Ms. McKitten represented arrested youth as a Senior Trial attorney and Director of Juvenile Grants and Policy at the Defender Association of Philadelphia.

Ms. McKitten is the Director of the Pennsylvania DMC Youth/Law Enforcement Corporation, a nonprofit that provides technical assistance and training to jurisdictions that seek to improve relationships between law enforcement and youth in the community, to reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and has trained law enforcement across the country.  She is also the co-chair for the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s Juvenile Racial and Ethnic Disparities Subcommittee, which works to eliminate ethnic and racial disparities in Pennsylvania’s juvenile justice system.

A 1999 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Ms. McKitten clerked for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and has taught Juvenile Justice as an adjunct professor at the Temple University Beasley School of Law.