BERKELEY, Calif. — Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton on Thursday called for a broader and more humane understanding of accountability in the criminal legal system, arguing that punishment alone has failed to fully serve victims, restore communities or prevent future harm.
Speaking at the Prosecutors Alliance convening, “Re-imagining Accountability: Restorative Justice and the Future of Prosecution,” held at Berkeley Law School, Becton described restorative justice as an essential tool for modern prosecutors and said the future of prosecution depends on expanding the ways justice is pursued. She later spoke with the Vanguard about how those ideas have shaped policy in Contra Costa County.
Becton, who took office in 2017 after serving more than two decades as a judge, said prosecutors must move beyond a singular reliance on punishment if they are serious about public safety.
“For generations, accountability in the criminal legal system has been defined very narrowly. It was focused almost exclusively on punishment,” Becton said. “And while accountability has to always include responsibility for harm that may have been caused, we now know that punishment alone doesn’t heal victims. It does not restore communities and it doesn’t always prevent future harm.”
Her remarks come amid a national debate over the role of elected prosecutors, with reform-minded district attorneys in some jurisdictions emphasizing diversion, rehabilitation and alternatives to incarceration, while critics argue such approaches can weaken enforcement. Becton framed the issue differently, saying restorative justice is not a substitute for prosecution but part of a wider set of tools available to achieve safety.
“Restorative justice, it’s a tool. It’s not a replacement,” she said. “It’s not a replacement for prosecution. It’s just a tool … a broader tool in the large toolbox that we have that all get us to that same thing that we’re striving for, which is a safe community.”
During her address and subsequent interview, Becton detailed three restorative justice initiatives currently operating in Contra Costa County.
The first, known as Restore, is aimed at young people and operates before charges are filed. Cases are referred to the district attorney’s office by law enforcement, reviewed by prosecutors, and then transferred to a community-based partner that convenes the affected parties, assesses the needs of the youth participant and develops a path toward accountability and support.
When participants successfully complete the program, no criminal record results.
“We started Restore for our youth,” Becton told the Vanguard. “The cases come to our office from our law enforcement partners. We have prosecutors who review those cases … contacting the victim to make sure that they are okay to participate or that the case will move forward in this way. And then we send it over, the whole case, over to our community based partner.”
She said the model ensures that harm is acknowledged while also addressing underlying needs that may contribute to future system involvement.
“They also give our youth an assessment like what are your needs so that when this is all done, you can move back into the community with some new tools in your toolbox that are going to help you to be successful,” Becton said.
A second initiative, the Neighborhood Restorative Partnership, serves adults in low-level nonviolent cases. In that program, trained community volunteers hear cases in panels of three, discuss the harm caused and help determine appropriate accountability measures.
Becton said the model draws from earlier restorative practices developed in San Francisco.
“It is community panel based,” she said. “So we have panelists from our various parts of our community who get trained in restorative justice practices. They actually are volunteering to hear cases from their own community.”
According to Becton, the county has seen strong results from that approach.
“We’ve had graduates, over 250 graduates … and nobody really believes me, but it’s 1%. It’s 1%, or that’s a three year history,” she said, referring to recidivism outcomes.
The third initiative focuses on emerging adults ages 18 to 25, a population increasingly recognized by researchers and policymakers as developmentally distinct from older adults. Becton said the program builds on lessons from the county’s youth model while adapting them to older participants.
Central to Becton’s message was the idea that victims do not all want the same response from the justice system.
“So as prosecutors, we continue to learn that victims are not a monolith,” she said. “They don’t all want the same thing. And so some want safety, some want distance, but some want answers. Some want acknowledgement … and restorative justice actually creates an accountability and an additional pathway that honors that choice as well.”
That victim-centered framing has become a key argument among proponents of restorative practices, who contend that traditional court proceedings often prioritize conviction and punishment while giving less space to healing, explanation or direct repair.
Becton also emphasized that successful reform requires internal culture change within prosecutors’ offices. Programs, she said, cannot succeed if line prosecutors and charging teams do not understand or support them.
“One of the challenges to restorative justice programs is not just the philosophy behind it, but also the referral pipeline,” she said. “So I think for programs to succeed, you have to have a buy-in from others in your office so that the cases are actually referred.”
To address that, Becton said she and her staff regularly meet with prosecutors across the county to explain program outcomes, eligibility requirements and safeguards, while reinforcing that restorative justice is a serious public safety strategy rather than symbolic reform.
“As an elected DA, I must set the tone,” she said. “I make it very clear that restorative justice is not like some soft thing that we’re doing, that it’s smart, that it’s intentional, and that it’s grounded in accountability.”
In her interview with the Vanguard, Becton said the broader shift in prosecution during her tenure has been the recognition that justice systems have more than one path to safety.
“What has happened is that we have recognized that we have so many different tools in our toolbox to get to that thing that everybody wants, which is safety in their community,” she said. “When I came into this work … what has happened in prosecutor offices for years and years has been a singular tool of punishment. And now we have opened the door to understand that there are a lot of other ways to get to community safety.”
She also warned that sustaining innovation has become more difficult because of changing public funding priorities.
“The biggest challenges that we are having right now is funding,” Becton said. “Some of these programs, the way we are able to start them and get them off the ground, actually are helped along by having federal funding and also state funding.”
While existing programs have become integrated into county operations, she said launching new initiatives has become harder as funding streams shift.
“I think the challenges come from, as we have different ideas that we want to bring in that lead us to community safety, getting that money to start up those new programs has been probably one of the largest challenges,” Becton said.
Becton closed her Berkeley remarks by urging prosecutors, researchers and advocates to embrace both the promise and complexity of reform.
“Re-imagining accountability is not about abandoning our responsibility as prosecutors,” she said, “but it’s a way of expanding that responsibility.”
For Becton, the future of prosecution is not defined by choosing between accountability and compassion, but by building systems capable of delivering both.
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