Chesa Boudin was San Francisco’s top prosecutor for less than three years. In that short time he became a potent symbol of a movement to rethink crime and punishment’s promise — and its perils.
The public defender and son of leftist radicals who spent years in prison for their roles in a deadly armed robbery was elected district attorney on a platform of cutting incarceration and cracking down on rogue cops. It didn’t last long. He was ousted in a 2022 recall election fomented by a potent blend of crime fears fanned by increases in homicides and property crimes, Covid-era frustration and Boudin’s practice of diverting offenders.
Yet the larger progressive approach to criminal justice Boudin embodied endures, pursued by district attorneys around the country. At the same time, public safety has become a politically volatile issue that Republicans eagerly and often effectively use as a bludgeon. Some wary Democrats in blue states like New York and California have begun to retreat by reversing changes to bail and the discovery process and mulling tougher property crime penalties, marking yet another turn in a decadeslong push and pull.