overprosecute
overprosecute verb: to prosecute (a crime or community) excessively.
Verb
overprosecute (third-person singular simple present overprosecutes, present participle overprosecuting, simple past and past participle overprosecuted)
- To prosecute (a crime or community) excessively.
- The emphasis on prosecution and conviction as metrics of success leads police and prosecutors to overarrest, overprosecute, and overpunish low-level drug and other crimes in many cases.2017, Sharon Dolovich, Alexandra Natapoff, The New Criminal Justice Thinking, page 61
- Criminal justice reform has become a national topic of discussion given recent police killings of Black men, and Jones points out that he's been a longtime activist on this issue, with his experience in Palo Alto and as an NAACP youth organizer. Also, he notes, as a Black man, "People like me are...2020 June 22, Trudy Ring, “Mondaire Jones Could Be the Nation's First Black Gay Congressman”, in The Advocate, archived from the original on 15 Aug 2021
Forms of overprosecute
| third-person singular present | overprosecutes |
|---|---|
| present participle | overprosecuting |
| past participle | overprosecuted |
| past | overprosecuted |
Origin of overprosecute
From over- + prosecute.
Questions about overprosecute
- What does overprosecute mean?
- Overprosecute means to prosecute (a crime or community) excessively.
- What part of speech is overprosecute?
- Overprosecute is a verb.
- What is the past tense of overprosecute?
- The past tense of overprosecute is overprosecuted.
Words near overprosecute in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: overprosecute (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “overprosecute.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overprosecute. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.