By Caleigh Carlisle
LOS ANGELES, CA – Cristine DeBerry, Executive Director of the Prosecutors Alliance of California (PAC), stated earlier this week during an interview with Dr. Phil that change is needed to fix the broken justice system.
The PAC was launched by DeBerry in Sept. 2020, and is a non-profit organization seeking to bring reform to the criminal justice system.
DeBerry previously worked as Deputy Chief of Staff to the then Mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom as well as Chief of Staff for San Francisco Attorney District Attorneys Georges Gascon and Chesa Boudin.
In the Dr. Phil interview, DeBerry said, “Here’s the challenge we have. The criminal justice system we’ve been using in this country for forty years says jail and prison is the solution to crime, but it fails almost 80 percent of the time.”
She added, “An 80 percent failure rate is unacceptable.”
When the concerns of New York City Mayor Eric Adams were brought up, regarding the notion that bail reform was allowing offenders to leave prison only to recommit crimes, DeBerry rebutted the claim.
“There were tragedies well before what we’re doing right now to reform the system. People were released from prison after serving their entire time and committed horrible offenses… at a higher rate than they do now. For anyone to suggest that reform is the problem is misplaced,” she said.
DeBerry asserted that with people who repeatedly offend, the treatment “has to be a locked mental health facility… [where] we can figure out what the problem is and an appropriate treatment plan to what [the person in question] is struggling with.”
“[Should] jail and prison be the answer to every problem? No, we know that definitively. We have forty years of evidence to show us that this is not the way to safety,” DeBerry concluded.
