Former San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin joined the Vanguard’s Everyday Injustice podcast this week to talk about criminal justice reform. (Edited for brevity and clarifty).
Chesa Boudin, former District Attorney of San Francisco isnow the founding Executive Director at the Berkeley Criminal Law and Justice Center.
David Greenwald: Let’s start with your experience as DA. What are the biggest lessons you took away from your time in office?
Chesa Boudin:Oh, so many lessons. How many hours do we have for this podcast? But if I had to summarize, I’d say one of the biggest takeaways is that who we elect matters less than how we build electoral power. Most politicians don’t care much about any particular issue or principle; they care about power. So if we’re able to organize effectively, we can apply pressure on them around the issues that matter to us.
We saw this vividly with Black Lives Matter in 2020. Every corporation and politician was rushing to prove their reform credentials. American Express, the NFL, Walmart—all tweeting black squares, hiring DEI experts. And now, just a few years later, we see a national backlash, even a federal-led witch hunt against DEI. The pendulum swings, and savvy politicians swing with it. If we want lasting change, we need long-term organizing, not just electoral wins.
David Greenwald: That makes me think of something John Faff said at a symposium at USF when you had just taken office. He warned that if reformers didn’t recalibrate how they measured success, the backlash would come fast. And he was right—the right wing woke up and out-organized progressives.
Chesa Boudin:Absolutely. John Faff is a smart guy. It would’ve been hard for most people—maybe not for him—to predict just how fast the pendulum would swing back. But to be a reformer in office in late 2020 and say, “Hey, wait a second, this police accountability push is going too far” would’ve been a tough sell.
Look at what happened: even Mayor London Breed, who was no ally of mine, came out and said she wanted to defund the police. That shocked me. She even got the Chief of Police to say it! So, imagine being a reformer trying to bring thoughtful, nuanced change in that moment. Everything was upside down. Now, we’re in the opposite extreme. Hopefully, history will see this moment as an aberration, too.
David Greenwald:In the past year, we’ve seen a backlash against reform prosecutors. George Gascón lost overwhelmingly in LA. Pamela Price got recalled in Alameda County. You were recalled. Is the reform prosecutor movement over?
Chesa Boudin: It depends on your perspective. If you only look at California, you might say it’s over. But nationally, most reform prosecutors are still in office. Some, like Monique Worrell in Florida, were removed by right-wing governors like Ron DeSantis, but she won her seat back.
You also have folks like José Garza in Austin, Texas, who won reelection despite deep-pocketed smear campaigns against him. Larry Krasner in Philadelphia is still in office. Kim Foxx finished her second term in Chicago and chose not to run again, but she was re-elected before that.
Movements evolve. There are setbacks. In California, we’ve had a rough couple of years, but nationally, the movement is alive and well. And let’s be honest—there’s something unique about California’s political landscape.
David Greenwald:there’s something strange about California. In the last election, voters passed a partial rollback of Prop 47, but then Prop 6—a measure to ban slavery in prisons—failed.
Chesa Boudin: Exactly. And Prop 6 didn’t even face any organized opposition! The language might have confused people—it didn’t say “slavery,” it said “involuntary servitude.” But still, that result was telling.
California’s national reputation as a deep-blue progressive state isn’t the full picture. This is the state that elected Pete Wilson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon. Even the Democrats in power here tend to be more corporate, mainstream Democrats, not the AOC-style progressives.
So when voters hear about crime, homelessness, and fentanyl, and they see Democratic leadership doing nothing, they’ll vote for the only option they’re given. That’s why Prop 36 passed—it had “homelessness” in the ballot language, even though it wasn’t about housing at all. If there had been a competing ballot measure offering real housing solutions, I bet that would’ve passed, too.
David Greenwald: Speaking of homelessness, I was talking to my local police chief, and he said a lot of people being evicted from the Bay Area are ending up in Davis. But they can’t access services here—their home county is responsible for that. So this push to criminalize homelessness is just moving people around rather than solving the problem.
Chesa Boudin: That’s exactly right. And we’ve seen that strategy before. San Francisco has had a “Homeward Bound” program for years, where they buy one-way bus tickets for unhoused people who want to leave. But the reality is, most unhoused people in San Francisco are from here. They’re not outsiders.
The broader issue is that politicians have intentionally conflated being unhoused with being criminal. But poverty is not a crime. Being priced out of your home is not a crime.
Now, the U.S. Supreme Court is making it easier for cities to criminalize homelessness. And places like San Francisco lobbied for that ruling! But jailing people won’t solve anything—it just increases costs, clogs courts, and doesn’t make anyone safer.
David Greenwald: Let’s talk about your work at Berkeley. What’s the focus of the Criminal Law and Justice Center?
Chesa Boudin:
We work in three main areas:
- Education – We teach students, supervise research, and engage in public education on criminal justice issues.
- Advocacy & Litigation – We file amicus briefs, work on policy reforms, and are actively litigating a case against the California Department of Corrections.
- Research – We publish interdisciplinary studies on topics like AI in criminal justice, the Racial Justice Act, reentry issues, and more.
David Greenwald: Tell me about the lawsuit against CDCR.
Chesa Boudin: This is about “Gate Money,” a law signed by Ronald Reagan that requires CDCR to give $200 to people when they leave prison. It was meant to help them get a meal, a bus ticket, a place to sleep for the night. But that $200 has never been adjusted for inflation—it should be about $1,500 today.
Worse, since 1994, CDCR has been illegally deducting money from that $200 for things like transportation and clothing. So some people are getting out of prison with nothing. That’s illegal.
We filed a class action lawsuit to stop these deductions and get people their money back. It’s a simple principle: If we expect people to reintegrate into society, we need to give them the bare minimum to survive.
David Greenwald: That’s a huge issue. And even exonerees—who spent decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit—don’t even get that $200!
Chesa Boudin: Exactly. If you were a conspiracy theorist, you’d think the tough-on-crime crowd actually wants more crime. Their policies ensure people come out of prison desperate, without resources, and more likely to be rearrested.
To watch the full interview – see below:
DG say: “the backlash would come fast. And he was right—the right wing woke up and out-organized progressives.”
The other thing that happened is a lot of moderate left-wing people felt less alienated by the new Trumpian right then they did by the new progressive left.
DG say: ” . . . this push to criminalize homelessness is just moving people around rather than solving the problem.”
No one is pushing to “criminalize homelessness”. That’s just a talking point for the progressive left. It means, “got a encampment or a homeless service center near you? Thanks for taking one for the team so the rest of us who * don’t * live near 11th & H or 5th & L or northern F Street can live our lives in peace without blight, garbage, drug sales, shouting, loose dogs, etc. We really appreciate it, SUCKERS!!!”
CB say: “But the reality is, most unhoused people in San Francisco are from here. They’re not outsiders.” I call BS! We all know the HAL’s go around and tell the so-called ‘homeless’ to fill out the forms to say they are from (fill in the City). I know you’ll call BS on my calling BS but I stand by my calling BS.