Ousted San Francisco DA reveals 2024 plans

Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is not running for office in 2024 and is leaving the political world behind — “for now.”

Boudin was voted out of office in June 2022 by those unhappy with his soft-on-crime approach. Now, he is serving as the newly appointed executive director of the University of California Berkeley Law’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center, taking a step away from the political sphere but maintaining his “lifelong commitment to fixing the criminal justice system.”

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“As I learned during my two-and-a-half years as San Francisco’s elected district attorney, it takes far more than winning elections to achieve lasting progress,” Boudin wrote in an opinion piece to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“That’s why, rather than seek another elected office in 2024, I’m choosing a different path for now — one that is still consistent with my lifelong commitment to fixing the criminal legal system, ending mass incarceration and innovating data-driven solutions to public safety challenges,” Boudin continued.

Boudin expressed his disapproval of both liberal and conservative politicians and law enforcement officials, saying lawmakers are “kneecapping efforts to move toward workable solutions” instead of showing leadership.

“It behooves all of us to pin down what does and doesn’t work in the criminal justice space and to foster a political climate capable of actually adopting good public policy consistent with our principles and our Constitution,” the former district attorney wrote.

He drew on personal experiences with his biological parents, who he said spent a combined 62 years in prison.

“A lifetime of visiting them behind bars, together with the years I spent as a public defender and then an elected prosecutor, taught me how catastrophically California and the nation’s current approach to justice are failing,” Boudin said.

The ousted district attorney was recalled and replaced by current San Francisco Attorney General Brooke Jenkins, who had resigned while serving under Boudin and ran a campaign slamming her former boss for his lax treatment of violent criminals and drug offenders.

Jenkins said at her swearing-in ceremony that she planned to “restore accountability and consequences to our criminal justice system.”

Boudin announced shortly after his recall in August 2022 that he would not seek the office again. Jenkins won her election to a full term in November 2022.

In California, both police and district attorneys have blamed the state’s Proposition 47, called the Safer Neighborhoods and Schools Act, or Prop 47, for an increase in crime, drug abuse, and homelessness.

Prop 47 reduced penalties for certain nonviolent property and drug crimes, moving some charges from felonies to misdemeanors. Prosecutors and sheriffs said Prop 47 weakened their powers and removed the incentive for criminals to go to drug rehab instead of prison.

However, Boudin said the new center will be focusing on jail diversion programs that he claimed were “loudly criticized” during his tenure but “barely had time to get off the ground.”

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“The long-term task and responsibility of those who believe in a more just criminal legal system are to educate the public to see these issues with greater clarity — and to mobilize that public to build institutions and infrastructure capable of supporting a society that is safe and just for all,” he wrote.

“That work is now more important than ever. I look forward to the challenge of taking it on,” Boudin continued.